UK Inflation Calculator

It compares a price index for two years and applies the ratio to your amount. If the index doubles between your two years, something that cost £100 in the earlier year would cost £200 in the later one. Enter an amount, pick two years, and choose which measure of inflation to use. That choice also sets how far back you can go: as far as 1751 on the three measures built on the long-run series, or 1988 on CPIH and CPI by themselves.

Enter the amount, choose the year it was from as the “from” year, and choose the latest year as the “to” year. The calculator shows what the same buying power would be in that later year, how much prices rose in between, and the average rise per year. The latest year available is 2025, so that is as close to today as the official figures go.

On the default measure, £1,000 in 1990 has the same buying power as about £2,505 in 2025, the latest year available. Prices rose 150.5% over those 35 years, an average of 2.7% a year. Other starting points for £1,000: 1980 is about £4,579, 2000 is about £1,880, 2010 is about £1,532 and 2020 is about £1,267. Enter your own amount and year above for any other figure.

Between 2020 and 2025, the latest year available, prices rose 26.7% on the default measure: something that cost £1,000 in 2020 would cost about £1,267 in 2025. That is an average of 4.9% a year, though more than half of the rise came in just two years, 2022 and 2023.

On the default measure, £1 in 1950 has the same buying power as about £36.59 in 2025. Put another way, prices are about 36.6 times higher, a rise of 3,558.7%, which is an average of 4.9% a year. Figures from that long ago are built from historical price series, so treat them as a good guide rather than an exact amount.

Each figure is the average price level for a whole calendar year, so a year is added once the Office for National Statistics has published its full-year data. 2025 is the latest year available, so it is the closest the calculator can get to today. Prices have moved a little since, so for a very recent amount the answer will be slightly out of date.

The default, “RPI to 1988, then CPIH”, is the one to use unless you have a reason not to: it reaches back to 1751 and uses the ONS’s own lead measure for the modern part of the period. If both your years are 1988 or later it gives exactly the same answer as picking CPIH on its own. “RPI to 1988, then CPI” is the same idea built on the headline measure instead — useful if you want the figure quoted in the news and used for the Bank of England’s 2% target to carry through the modern part of the period, bearing in mind CPI leaves housing costs out. Choose “RPI and long-run index” if you would rather stay on a single measure the whole way, which is more consistent but leans on RPI for recent decades, and RPI runs high — for a sum from 1900 it gives a result about a third larger than the default. None of them is wrong; they answer slightly different questions.

Figures come from the Office for National Statistics. “CPIH” is the ONS’s lead measure of inflation — CPI plus owner occupiers’ housing costs and council tax — and begins in 1988. “CPI” is the headline measure, also from 1988. “RPI and long-run index” uses the ONS Retail Prices Index long-run series, extended before 1800 by the ONS composite price index, which reaches back to 1751. The other two options join that long-run series to a modern measure at 1988: the default continues with CPIH’s movements from there, and “RPI to 1988, then CPI” continues with CPI’s instead. Both joins are something we assemble rather than a series the ONS publishes. Linking shorter indices into one long one is the standard way to reach back beyond any single measure — the House of Commons Library’s own series back to 1750 is built from four different indices that way — but it is worth knowing the result is a construction.

All three measure how prices change, but they cover different baskets. CPI is the headline measure, the one used for the Bank of England’s 2% target, and it excludes housing costs. CPIH is identical to CPI except that it adds owner occupiers’ housing costs and council tax back in — the housing part measured as what it would cost to rent an equivalent home, so it deliberately does not track house prices. That makes CPIH the ONS’s most comprehensive measure, and it has been their lead measure of inflation since 2017. RPI is the oldest of the three; it includes mortgage interest payments and uses a different averaging method, which tends to push it higher than the other two. RPI lost its National Statistics status in 2013, and the ONS now describes it as a legacy measure it is required to publish under legislation and not a good measure of inflation, with the intention of bringing CPIH’s methods into it in February 2030. It still earns its place here because it is what the long-run series back to 1751 is built on.

Yes. Set the “from” year later than the “to” year and the calculation runs in reverse — useful for questions like “what would £50,000 today have been worth in 1975?” The Swap years button flips the two years round for you, so you can read the comparison both ways without picking them again.

Not at the moment — every year currently shown, up to 2025, is final ONS data. Annual figures are occasionally revised as the ONS confirms them, so if a very recent year is ever added before it’s finalised, it will be marked as provisional next to that year.

It is the compound annual rate — the steady yearly rate that would produce the same overall change across the period. It is not a simple average of each year's inflation, because inflation compounds: a 5% rise followed by another 5% rise leaves prices 10.25% higher, not 10%.

No. Every measure here tracks a representative basket of goods and services across the whole economy. Your personal inflation rate depends on what you actually spend money on — someone who rents, drives a lot, or has children may experience price changes quite different from the national average.