UK Unemployment Rate
The share of the labour force who want a job and are actively looking, but can't find one.
4.7%
Matches the latest releaseNot refreshed recently, awaiting the next release
Explore the full UK economy27 live indicators on one dashboard, from growth and prices to jobs, trade and public finances. Updated automatically from official sources.Unemployment Rate
Feb 1971 to Jun–Aug 2026
Source: ONS series MGSX (LMS) · aged 16 and over, seasonally adjusted.
UK Unemployment Rate in context
Worked out from the published series shown above.
In the UK, the unemployment rate fell by 0.1pp over the year to Jun–Aug 2026, from 4.8% in Jun–Aug 2025.
Over the past five years it has ranged from 3.6% in May–Jul 2022 to 5.2% in Oct–Dec 2025.
Its average since Jan–Mar 1971 is 6.6%, and the latest reading is below that.
The UK is 36th of 62 countries in our Unemployment Rate by Country ranking.
How this series is defined
Everything you need to check the figure against the source.
- Source
- ONS
- Series
- MGSX
- Frequency
- Monthly
- Unit
- %
- Seasonal adjustment
- Seasonally adjusted
- Latest observation
- Jun–Aug 2026
- Revision status
- Latest published estimate, subject to revision
Data refreshed 2026-10-28. Figures are the latest published observations and can be revised.
More UK indicators
Latest readings. Open any one for its full history.
Rankings
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