Welcome to the August 2026 edition of The Money Statistics, The Money Charity’s comprehensive monthly round-up of statistics showing how we use money in the UK, kindly funded by Vanquis.
Striking Numbers from the August Money Statistics:
- The Consumer Prices Index increased by 2.9% in the year to July 2026, up from 2.6% in June. This was the first increase in the annual inflation rate since March 2026.
- Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 1.3% in the year to July 2026, down from 1.7% in June. The annual rate was last lower in September 2021, when it was 0.8%. In contrast, gas prices rose by 14.7% during July, compared with a fall of 7.2% a year ago.
- Ofgem announced a 4% increase of the energy price cap from 1 October. Based on the energy use of a typical domestic household, from October, the price cap will increase by £60 per year – or £5 per month – to £1,723 for the average household using both electricity and gas if this level was sustained for a year.
- There were an estimated 707,000 job vacancies in the UK between May and July 2026, 6,000 fewer than in the previous three months. Outside of the pandemic period, vacancies were last at or below this level in September to November 2014.
- In April to June 2026, ONS estimates that the number of payrolled employees fell by 86,000 (0.3%) over the year and by 37,000 (0.1%) compared with the previous quarter.
- In the three months to June 2026, regular pay increased by 3.5% on the year before, while pay including bonuses increased by 4.1%. In real terms (adjusted for consumer price inflation), for the year to June 2026, regular pay increased by 0.5%, while total pay increased by 1.1%.
- In May to July 2026, there were 35,197 individual insolvencies in England and Wales, an increase of 13.4% from 31,050 for the same period in 2025. This was equivalent to 383 people a day or one person every 3 minutes 46 seconds.
Get the full picture and many more fascinating facts about money in the UK in our monthly Money Statistics. Previous editions can be found in the archive.
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