The unemployment rate in the UK rose to 5.2% for the October-December period 2025, the highest level in almost five years. This is according to official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), published on February 17.
Compared with the previous quarter (July–September 2025), unemployment increased by 0.2 percentage points. The number of unemployed people aged 16 and over increased by 94,000, reaching 1.883 million. The last time such a level was seen was in early 2021, during the recovery period from the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Young people were particularly hard hit: the unemployment rate among 16-24-year-olds jumped to 16.1%, the highest in more than a decade. Experts note that young people are the first to feel the effects of slowing hiring and the overall weakness of the labor market.
Along with rising unemployment, wage growth has continued to slow, fueling expectations for another interest rate cut by the Bank of England as early as March 2026. Analysts believe that the weak labor market and cooling inflation are creating favorable conditions for further monetary easing.
Economists note that although the number of people employed in the country increased by almost 400,000 over the year, current trends point to a further possible deterioration in the situation in 2026 if hiring does not recover.