RPI inflation rate in the UK 2000-2024
The inflation rate for the Retail Price Index (RPI) in the United Kingdom was 3.4 percent in October 2024, an uptick from the previous month, when it was 2.7 percent. Since 2021, prices in the UK have been rising rapidly, although it is likely this wave of high inflation peaked in October 2022.
The CPI and CPIH
While the retail price index is still a popular method of calculating inflation, the consumer price index (CPI) is the current main measurement of inflation in the UK. There is also an additional price index, which includes some extra housing costs, known as the Consumer Price Index including homer occupiers' costs (CPIH) index, which is seen by the UK's Office of National Statistics as the official inflation rate. As of December 2023, the CPI inflation rate stood at four percent, while the CPIH rate was 4.2 percent,
Core inflation creeping up in 2023
As with the RPI inflation rate, CPI inflation also peaked in October 2022, at 11.2 percent. Although the inflation rate remained in double figures for several months, price increases have generally slowed down since then, due in large part to housing and energy inflation falling from 26.1 percent in March 2023, to 12.3 percent in April 2023, with prices in this sector falling by 3.4 percent as of December 2023. If energy and food prices are stripped from inflation calculations, however, underlying core inflation was actually increasing at a faster rate than headline inflation in December 2023, at 5.1 percent.