Accredited official statistics

United Kingdom milk prices and composition of milk – statistics notice (data for December 2025)

Updated 22 January 2026

Milk price data for November and December 2025 may be subject to a greater degree of revision than usual in future releases, because of lower survey return rates for these months.

Minor revisions have been made to milk price data from January 2024 onwards, to reflect an adjustment to exclude retrospective bonus payments for Northern Ireland, in line with how data is reported for all other UK countries. Data excluding retrospective bonus payments for Northern Ireland is not available prior to this date, and so UK prices prior to January 2024 still include retrospective bonus payments for Northern Ireland only.

1.1 Key messages

• This release shows the latest information on average farm-gate milk prices, volumes and the butterfat and protein content of UK produced milk.

• The UK average farm-gate milk price for December 2025 is 40.29 pence per litre (ppl). This represents a 6.1% (2.6 ppl) decrease on November 2025 and a 13% decrease on December 2024. (Figure 1.2)

• Butterfat decreased 0.4% from last month at 4.45%. Compared to last year, butterfat is 0.4% higher than December 2024. (Figure 1.3a)

• Protein decreased 0.9% from last month at 3.55%. Compared to last year, protein is 3.3% higher than December 2024. (Figure 1.3b).

• Milk volumes in December 2025 were 1,344 million litres, they have increased 4.3% on November 2025 and increased 5.2% on December 2024. (Figure 1.4).

1.2 United Kingdom farm-gate milk price (pence per litre)

1.3 Average butterfat and protein content of United Kingdom produced milk

1.3a. Butterfat %

1.3b. Protein %

1.4 United Kingdom wholesale milk production (million litres)

1.5 Percentage change in key items: December 2025 compared to December 2024

Item	Percentage change
Milk price	-13.3
Milk volume	5.2
Butterfat	0.4
Protein	3.3

1.6 Trends

Figures 1.2 to 1.4 above show the values for the latest 12 months along with the five year average, maximum and minimum monthly values.

1.7 Retrospective payments

Some companies make retrospective bonus payments. With the exception of Northern Ireland data prior to 2024, where data excluding retrospective bonus payments is not available, we do not reflect these payments in the monthly milk price figures. For example, the annual average price for farm-gate milk in 2019, including retrospective payments, is 29.10 ppl, 0.23 ppl more than the annual average price without retrospective payments (28.87 ppl). In 2019 total retrospective payments were 2.0% lower than 2018 at £34.7 million.

A retrospective payment is when a company makes a payment to a farmer that is outside the normal contract price they receive and is generally paid on prior production, for example profit sharing.

1.8 Revisions and estimates

England and Wales survey response in December 2025 was 85%. Data for missing respondents is estimated based off of previous returns and trends for the rest of the respondents.

In the July 2025 publication, Northern Ireland have provided price data excluding retrospective bonus payments back to January 2024. This has led to minor revisions of at most 0.2% for UK milk prices across this period since retrospective bonus payments were previously included in Northern Ireland figures.

1.9 Accredited official status

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. An explanation can be found on the Office for Statistics Regulation website.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2014. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards (see contact details below). Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

The next update of this monthly notice is at 09:30 on Thursday, 26 February 2026.

Enquiries to: Julie Rumsey, Tel: +44 (0) 208 026 6306

email: julie.rumsey@defra.gov.uk

Defra, Rm 201,
Foss House,
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