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Number of 8.3 million people on Universal Credit in October 2025

ended 08. December 2025

There were 8.3 million people on Universal Credit in October 2025, up from 7.2 million people on Universal Credit in October 2024, driven in part by claimants moving from legacy benefits under the Move to Universal Credit programme, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced today.

The DWP said the proportion of people in the ‘no work requirements’ conditionality regime (49%) continues to increase — and that there were, on average, 60,000 claims and 54,000 starts per week in October 2025, slightly higher than at the same point in October 2024

Universal Credit households with children accounted for nearly half (47%) of all households with a payment in August 2025, the data revealed. In August 2025, 160,000 households received the Universal Credit childcare element, a 6% decrease since August 2024.

Meanwhile, approximately 3.1 million Universal Credit households (46% of all Universal Credit households) had one or more deductions taken from their Universal Credit entitlement in August 2025.

What are your thoughts on this data? Deadline is 10:15.

 

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Dariusz KarpowiczVerified
Director at Albion Financial Advice
That is a jump of over a million claimants in just 12 months. Nearly half of all UC households now have deductions taken from their payments, and 49% sit in the "no work requirements" category. The system was built to support the vulnerable, and it should. But when fit, working age adults remain parked on benefits indefinitely, you have to ask who is funding this expanding bill. The answer is businesses already struggling and workers already stretched. Britain needs a welfare system that protects those who genuinely need it while actively moving people back into work. Without that balance, you are asking a shrinking productive base to carry an ever growing load.
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Patricia McGirrVerified
Founder at Repossession Rescue Network
We’re creating an ever larger bill for businesses and workers to shoulder, because every expansion of welfare support lands somewhere in the real economy. The removal of the two child cap might be morally positioned, but it adds long term cost that employers and taxpayers will ultimately be asked to fund. If the labour market is already stretched and SMEs are fighting for survival, piling higher welfare obligations onto a shrinking productive base is not a strategy, it’s a slow leak in the system. The country can’t keep writing bigger cheques while expecting a smaller workforce to cash them. We need policy and strategy that gets Britain working!