Official Statistics

Universal Credit statistics: 29 April 2013 to 8 October 2020

Official experimental statistics including the number of people and households on Universal Credit, starts and claims.

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Documents

Payment Timeliness table, 11 January 2018 to 14 March 2019

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email accessible.formats@dwp.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

The latest release of these statistics can be found in the Universal Credit statistics collection.

These are official statistics (experimental) on Universal Credit for England, Scotland and Wales released according to arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

Summary tables for Universal Credit statistics are available on Stat-Xplore.

The bulletin and background information and methodology document have been reviewed and updated. The Universal Credit statistics production team would welcome and encourage feedback on what changes are welcomed and what further improvements could be made.

Non-media enquiries: team.ucos@dwp.gov.uk

These experimental statistics contain data for the total number of people:

  • who have submitted a claim for Universal Credit with a personal declaration to 8 October 2020
  • who have made a claim and have attended an initial interview, accepted their claimant commitment, and gone on to start Universal Credit up to 8 October 2020
  • who are on Universal Credit at 8 October 2020

They also contain data for the total number of households on Universal Credit at 13 August 2020.

All data is available on Stat-Xplore.

People on Universal Credit statistics has count data by:

  • Jobcentre Plus office
  • country, region, local authority and census area output
  • Westminster parliamentary constituency
  • postcode (district)
  • age
  • conditionality regime
  • duration
  • gender
  • employment status (to 10 September 2020)

Claims on Universal Credit statistics has count data by:

  • postcode (area)

Starts on Universal Credit statistics has count data by:

  • Jobcentre Plus office
  • postcode (area)
  • age
  • gender

Households on Universal Credit statistics has counts and average (mean) payment by:

  • Jobcentre Plus office
  • country, region, local authority and census area output
  • Westminster parliamentary constituency
  • postcode (district)
  • additional elements (carer, child, childcare, disabled child, housing (by tenure), limited capability to work
  • alternative payment arrangements (managed payment to landlord, more frequent payment, split payment)
  • Scottish choices (direct payment to landlord, more frequent payment)
  • family type
  • monthly award (bands)
  • payment indicator
  • payment timeliness (to 9 July 2020)

Interactive statistics

View statistics on the Universal Credit claimants at Jobcentre Plus office level in an interactive map.

View an interactive map which shows statistics on households on Universal Credit at Local Authority level.

View an interactive dashboard of the latest Universal Credit household statistics by region.

Find further breakdowns of these statistics in Stat-Xplore, an online tool for exploring some of DWP’s main statistics.

Pre-release access

In addition to staff who are responsible for the production and quality assurance of the statistics, up to 24 hour pre-release access is provided to ministers and other officials. We publish the job titles and organisations of the people who have been granted up to 24 hour pre-release access to the latest Universal Credit statistics.

More information

Read the background information and methodology note for more information about the Universal Credit statistics.

Updates to this page

Published 10 November 2020
Last updated 1 December 2020 + show all updates
  1. Revised to correct errors for in payment households and payment timeliness in the main stories section of the bulletin. A correction has also been made to the families without children for March 2020 in the main stories and body of the bulletin due to a rounding error. These changes do not affect the figures on Stat-Xplore or in the data tables accompanying the bulletin.

  2. First published.

Sign up for emails or print this page