Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up
Estimates of the take-up of the main income-related benefits by caseload and expenditure in Great Britain.
The Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2024 were published on Thursday 30 October 2025.
The FYE 2024 publication only focuses on pension age income related benefits:
- Pension Credit
- Housing Benefit
The next release of FYE 2025 estimates, will be published 22 October 2026.
It will also include the new Official Statistics in Development on estimates of take-up of Universal Credit (or equivalent benefits). This initial release will report on FYE 2024 and FYE 2025 estimates. This publication will reinstate reporting on the working age population (last published in full for FYE 2016).
For more information regarding this, please see the release strategy document.
Key updates within the FYE 2024 release include:
From FYE 2024, we have incorporated improved linking of administrative data to the Family Resources Survey, to better identify those in receipt of Pension Credit or Housing Benefit. Take-up estimates were already based on administrative data linking and there are minimal impacts to estimates with this latest improvement to the approach used. This methodological change was implemented from FYE 2024 and not backdated to previous years.
From FYE 2024, a further change in methodology was introduced, moving to an approach which uses more extensive calibration to derive sample weights for the survey data, used to obtain estimates for Entitled Non-Recipient cases. This improves the representativeness of the survey sample, for the estimation of Entitled Non-Recipient cases. It also ensures a consistent approach with other statistics. Investigations show minimal impacts of this change on estimates. This methodological change was implemented from FYE 2024 and not backdated to previous years.
A few small errors were identified in the historical data tables. They have been corrected in the data tables for this release and so previous data tables should not be used.
Ad hoc release
DWP released an ad-hoc publication Analysis of households potentially eligible for Pension Credit, and eligible households in receipt of Pension Credit – 2023 to 2024, on Thursday 30 October 2025. This ad-hoc statistical release provides analysis of the characteristics of households potentially eligible for, but not claiming, Pension Credit. The ad-hoc statistics do not include national estimates for Great Britain, instead, it provides analysis at a sub-national level (below Great Britain).
Find future publication dates in our statistics release calendar and other DWP statistics on the Statistics at DWP page.
If you have any queries about this re-instatement, please contact irb.takeup@dwp.gov.uk.
Note, our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
Latest release
Release strategy
This release strategy acts as the formal notice of changes to any future releases of the income-related benefits: estimates of take-up publication.
The strategy describes the potential release of new statistics within the publication and announces any other developments for future publications. This includes updates on the new Official Statistics in Development on estimates of take-up of Universal Credit (or equivalent benefits).
The income-related benefits: estimates of take-up release strategy is not a static document; it will be updated as plans develop, to provide users with details of latest developments.
Previous releases
There are older releases of these statistics on the National Archives website.
Background information and guidance
These statistics are designed to give an estimate of the take-up of benefits within the entitled population. They aim to provide an indication of whether and to what extent the different benefits are taken up by different groups.
The statistics can be used to
- increase awareness of take-up for particular benefits
- inform government policies
- measure the effect of take-up initiatives
Additional details of how the statistics are commonly used can be found in the usage of income-related benefits report on the National Archives website.
Read a guide to sources of data on earnings and income as well as further information on income and earning statistics, both published by the Office for National Statistics.