What gets published
12-month all-items CPI rate and month-on-month change for October 2026. The Bank of England's primary inflation target measure.
CPI including owner-occupier housing costs (OOH) — the ONS's preferred measure. Currently running ~0.3–0.4 pp above CPI.
Services CPI is the most closely watched component for BoE policy. Also includes NEIG (non-energy industrial goods) and energy breakdowns.
All items ex food and energy. The cleanest signal of underlying price pressure, stripped of the most volatile components.
Retail Price Index — no longer a national statistic, but still used for index-linked gilt calculations and some wage negotiations.
How to read it
The Bank of England has been explicit: services CPI is the gating condition for rate cuts. At 5.6% in September 2026, services is running far above the level consistent with the 2% CPI target (roughly 3.0–3.5% on services is needed). Any movement in October's services reading — up or down — will directly move market pricing of BoE rate cuts. A fall below 5.4% would be materially dovish; a rise above 5.7% would be hawkish. Watch this number first, before the headline.
Services inflation →October 2025 UK CPI was 2.3% — a particularly low reading due to the energy price cap reduction that month. This creates a favourable base effect comparison: October 2026 headline CPI could be dragged up relative to September simply because October 2025 was low. Check whether any rise in headline CPI in October 2026 is driven by base effects (look at the monthly change — if MoM is flat but YoY rises, it is base effects) or by genuine new price pressure (both MoM and YoY rising).
Base effect →CPIH includes an estimate of owner-occupier housing costs (OOH) via a rental equivalence approach. When mortgage rates are rising, OOH costs rise, pushing CPIH above CPI. As mortgage rates stabilise or fall in 2026, the gap between CPIH and CPI should narrow. The ONS also publishes a separate Private Rental Prices index — which has been running at 8–9% — that shows the full pressure on renters, most of which has not yet fed through fully into CPIH.
CPI →On the day
NOV 2026 · times in GMTFull bulletin, tables, and datasets published simultaneously at ons.gov.uk. GBP/USD and UK gilt yields react immediately. Services CPI is the primary market driver.
UK short-term gilts (2-year) are most sensitive. GBP moves on BoE rate cut repricing. FTSE 100 impact depends on whether the reading is more or less inflationary than expected.
Bank of England-watchers at major banks (Goldman, JPM, Barclays, HSBC) release same-day notes on BoE implications. These are often more informative than initial wire service headlines.
The November MPC decision follows on Thursday — the CPI release on Wednesday feeds directly into market expectations for the BoE decision the next day.