Historical trend
By nation
England 4.0 %
Scotland 4.3 %
Wales 4.8 %
Northern Ireland 3.2 %
Source: ONS / OECD
Trend summary
UK unemployment was 4.6% in the three months to February 2025, above the recent low of 3.5% recorded in mid-2023.
Trend
- Unemployment has risen by approximately 1 percentage point since its 2023 trough.
- The current rate is below the post-2010 average of around 5.5% but above the pre-pandemic low.
- The UK rate (4.6%) is higher than Germany (3.4%) and Japan (2.5%) but lower than France (7.3%) and Canada (6.7%).
Context
- The ONS Labour Force Survey measures unemployment on the ILO definition: those without a job, available to start within two weeks, and actively seeking work.
- LFS estimates carry a margin of error of around ±0.3 percentage points at the national level.
Official projections
The OBR (March 2025) projects unemployment to peak at around 4.8% in 2025 before gradually declining.
Trend summary generated by claude-sonnet-4-6 on 31 January 2025. Contains no editorial judgement — describes direction, magnitude, and official projections only.
G7 comparison
UK ranks #4 of 7 in the G7 (lower is better)
🇯🇵 Japan
2.5 %
🇩🇪 Germany
3.4 %
🇺🇸 United States
4.1 %
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
5.0 %
🇮🇹 Italy
5.7 %
🇨🇦 Canada
6.7 %
🇫🇷 France
7.3 %
About this indicator
- Source
- ONS / OECD
- Update frequency
- Monthly
- Last updated
- 16 June 2026
- Licence
- OGL v3
- Rising trend is…
- Negative
Statistics
- Latest
- 5.0 %
- Period high
- 11.9
- Period low
- 3.4
- Period average
- 6.6