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 official statistics, for FYE 2025, were published on Thursday 22 October 2026.
This includes the following pension age income related benefits:
- Pension Credit (PC)
- Housing Benefit (HB) for pensioners
These are Official Statistics and include the latest Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2025 estimates.
The working age benefits included in the new composite measure UC (or equivalent benefits) are:
- Universal Credit (UC)
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA (IB))
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA (IR))
- Income Support (IS)
- Working Tax Credit (WTC)
- Child Tax Credit (CTC)
- Housing Benefit (HB) for working age claimants
These are Official Statistics in Development. This release reports on FYE 2024 and FYE 2025 estimates and reinstates reporting on the working age population (last published in full for FYE 2016)
The next release of FYE 2026 estimates, will be published in September/October 2027.
Key updates within the FYE 2025 release include:
Introduction of take-up statistics for Universal Credit (or equivalent benefits) for FYE 2024 and FYE 2025 as Official Statistics in Development, in the FYE 2025 release. This publication includes new tables and also an updated background information and methodology document.
In March 2026 the first integrated Family Resources Survey based on linked benefits data was published, relating to FYE 2025 data. This has no impact on the take-up estimates as the FYE 2024 results were based on the same linking approach, but in effect means one less step in producing the publication as the administrative data linking is already incorporated in the source FRS data.
We have made a methodological improvement in earlier years to account for leap years. This affects the conversion from weekly to annual expenditure estimates, but changes are small. This has been implemented within this FYE 2025 release and therefore previous data should not be used.
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.
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.