The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the UK Consumer Prices Index for November 2026 on 18 December, showing headline CPI at 3.0% — unchanged from October. The number masks a widening split inside the basket: goods inflation has essentially stalled (0.4%), while services inflation remains elevated at 5.5%, reflecting the persistence of wage growth in the UK labour market.
Why services inflation is so stubborn
Services make up around 46% of the UK CPI basket and include everything from haircuts to hotel stays. Unlike goods, services prices are driven primarily by domestic wage costs, not global supply chains. UK private sector regular pay growth was running at around 5.2% in the autumn of 2026 — above the level the Bank of England's November Monetary Policy Report considered consistent with 2% CPI over the medium term. Until services inflation falls durably below ~5%, the BoE is unlikely to cut aggressively.
The ONS CPI dataset allows you to download every component's monthly series back to 1988. The Bank of England inflation statistics page provides the BoE's own measures of underlying inflation, including trimmed-mean and weighted-median CPIs.
Goods: the disinflation engine
Non-energy industrial goods (clothing, furniture, electronics) are now contributing almost nothing to UK headline inflation. Global goods price disinflation — driven by normalised supply chains and a strong pound — has done most of the heavy lifting in bringing UK CPI down from its 11.1% peak in October 2022. The World Bank Commodity Markets Outlook projects commodity prices to remain subdued through 2027, which should keep goods inflation near zero. The OECD Economic Outlook projects UK CPI at 2.4% by end-2027.