Brief

Who claims Britain’s benefits, and how much do they cost?

See how many people receive each benefit, what it tends to pay the recipient, and where each benefit sits in DWP’s £289bn bill.

16 Sept 2026 · Report explained: Department for Work and Pensions, Annual DWP Benefits Statistics Compendium 2026, released 15 September 2026

: Ink is the publisher's own figure, as printed.
: Pencil is our working, always shown beside it.

How the benefits bill is spent DWP's own £289.3bn across 30 benefits, 2024/25, the last year DWP has actual spending figures for (cash terms). Slice sizes are proportional to DWP's published figures. Choose a benefit: click a slice or a name.

Source: Department for Work and Pensions, Outturn and forecast tables: Spring Forecast 2026, Table 1a · DWP's own total is £289.3bn; the rows can differ from it by a few million from DWP's rounding.

State Pension: who claims it, and what it pays

12,207,303 people received State Pension in March 2026 — DWP's own count, more than the 11,947,745 DWP printed in February 2025 and the 12,147,631 in November 2025; the chart below is DWP's own figure for every period it prints, not ours.

State Pension: people receiving it DWP's own count, Great Britain

Source: Department for Work and Pensions, Stat-Xplore: people claiming each benefit, and the weekly amount paid · as published

By nation

England 10,464,904
Wales 664,612
Scotland 1,077,786

What it pays

Great Britain £221.42
England £221.41
Wales £218.94
Scotland £223.05

DWP's own average weekly amount in payment, March 2026.

Department for Work and Pensions, Stat-Xplore: people claiming each benefit, and the weekly amount paid

A figure that needs care. DWP's compendium headline for the State Pension is 13 million, higher than the 12.2 million here. Its headline counts State Pension paid worldwide, including about a million recipients living abroad; the chart and the table above count Great Britain only. Both are DWP's own figures — they are two different bases.

How many people claim at all

People can claim more than one benefit. DWP counts them in two Stat-Xplore cubes, one for England and Wales and one for Scotland. The compendium adds them into one rounded Great Britain figure. That figure also counts people living abroad, mostly State Pension recipients, so it is higher than the three nations added together.

20,270,793 people in England claim at least one DWP benefit, March 2026

DWP's own count, from its Stat-Xplore Benefit Combinations cube.

By age

State pension age 10,627,955
Under 16 869,277
Working age 8,773,560

By how many benefits they hold

One benefit 13,628,490
Two benefits 4,787,159
Three or moreOur estimate 1,855,149

DWP bands this from one to six or more, so the last segment is where we group them.

What the report prints

The compendium gives one Great Britain figure — 25,000,000 people — split into 13,000,000 of state pension age, 10,000,000 of working age, 910,000 of under 16. The parts are rounded, so they add to the headline only approximately. All of these are DWP's own figures, printed in different places.

Department for Work and Pensions, Annual DWP Benefits Statistics Compendium: 2026

What this doesn't tell you

A count of claimants is not a measure of need. More people claiming a benefit can mean more illness, more poverty, or just a wider eligibility rule.
The bill is one year's spending, in cash terms, for 2024/25 — it is not what the same benefits will cost next year.
In Scotland, Attendance Allowance, Carer's Allowance, Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment have been replaced by Scotland-only benefits paid by Social Security Scotland. DWP's figures for these four leave Scotland out.
Great Britain excludes Northern Ireland, where these benefits are run separately.
An average weekly amount hides the spread: a benefit set at one rate for most people will still show an average because of partial awards and overlapping benefits.
The compendium's own comparison is a one-off: it moves to financial-year reporting, so it measures March 2026 against February 2025, not against the same month a year earlier.

Sources and method

Department for Work and Pensions, Stat-Xplore: people claiming each benefit, and the weekly amount paid — 10 benefits, Great Britain and the nations
Department for Work and Pensions, Outturn and forecast tables: Spring Forecast 2026 — Table 1a, 2024/25, the last year DWP has actual spending figures for (cash terms)
Department for Work and Pensions, Benefit and pension rates 2025 to 2026 — the rates from April 2025
Department for Work and Pensions, Annual DWP Benefits Statistics Compendium: 2026 — benefit combinations, March 2026

Every figure is the publisher's own, read from their own file with the position recorded.