Rule-based calculation on an official index · CPI to 1 July 2026
Am I better off than I was?
A pay rise only counts once prices are taken off it. This compares your pay in two years against the ONS Consumer Prices Index over the same period. The pay figures are yours; the price figures are the published index.
Real change in pay · 2021 to 2026
−8.0%
£30,000 in 2021 buys what £38,052 buys in 2026; you have £3,052 a year less than that
Your pay rose +16.7%. Prices rose +26.8%. Dividing one by the other gives the real change, −8.0%. Over the same years, average regular weekly pay across Great Britain rose +29.5% in cash terms.
The working
- Nominal change
- £35,000 ÷ £30,000 − 1 = +16.7%
- Price change
- CPI index 141.5 (2026) ÷ 111.6 (2021) − 1 = +26.8%
- Real change
- (1 + 0.1667) ÷ (1 + 0.2684) − 1 = −8.0%
- Index basis
- 2021: mean of 12 published months. 2026: mean of 7 published months (1 January 2026 to 1 July 2026: a partial year, so the price change is to date rather than for the whole year).
What this does and does not measure
CPI is the ONS’s headline measure of consumer prices; it excludes owner-occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH includes them) and mortgage interest (RPI includes it), so if your rent or mortgage rose faster than the index your own experience will be worse than this shows. There is no official regional price index, so no location adjustment is offered. Tax changes over the period are not included: this is gross pay against prices. Personal inflation by spending pattern is a separate, planned tool.
Check the data
- Prices
- Consumer Prices Index · ONS · latest 1 July 2026, released 18 August 2026
- Pay benchmark
- Average weekly pay · ONS