In 2006 UK defence spending was £35 billion and increased to £45 billion in 2011 and then stayed constant for a few years. In 2017 and 2018 defence spending started to increase again.

For the year ending March 2025 defence spending was £71.4 billion.

In terms of Gross Domestic Product UK defence spending was 2.4 percent of GDP in 2006 and increased to 2.75 percent GDP in 2011, but then began a decline down to 2.3 percent at the end of the 2010s.

For the year ending March 2025 defence spending was 2.5 percent GDP.

UK Defence Since World War II

Chart S.13t: UK Defence since 1947

In 1947, in the aftermath of World War II, UK defence spending was 16 percent of GDP, but declined to 6 percent of GDP by 1950.

But then came the Korean War, and defence spending increased to 11.2 percent GDP in 1952. Thereafter it declined through the rest of the 1950s to 7 percent GDP by 1959.

In the 1960s defence spending declined slowly, dropping through 7 percent GDP in 1963 and then holding steady until defence budget cuts at the end of the 1960 reduced defence spending to 5.4 percent GDP in 1970.

Defence spending was pretty steady at 5.4-5.5 percent GDP in the 1970s, peaking at 5.95 percent GDP in 1982 and the Falklands War. Thereafter defence spending declined to 5.3 percent GDP in the mid 1980s, and dropped through 5.0 percent in 1987, before stablizing at 4 percent of GDP in the early 1990s.

In the mid 1990s after the ERM exit defence spending was cut, declining to 3 percent GDP in 1997, and continuing a decline to 2.63 percent GDP in 2003.

In the mid 2000s, defence spending was increased to 2.6-2.7 percent GDP, but since the Great Recession defence spending has declined to about 2.4-2.5 percent GDP.

UK Defence Spending Since 1900

Chart S.14t: UK Defence since 1900

The beginning of the 20th century sees Britain cranking defence spending up to 7 percent of GDP in the Boer War. Then, in World War I, the government manages to extract over 45 percent of GDP, peaking at 47 percent of GDP in 1918 to fight the war in France.

The heroic national sacrifice of WWI was exceeded in World War II, when defence spending peaked at over 52 percent of GDP in 1945.

The Korean War showed a blipin defence spending up to 11 percent of GDP, and thereafter defence spending went into a long withdrawing roar, declining to 5 percent of GDP in 1986 at the end of the Cold War. In the 2010s, defence spending holds at about 2.4 percent of GDP.

UK Defence Spending Since the Glorious Revolution

Chart S.15t: UK Defence since 1900

The whole point of the Glorious Revolution was to help the Dutch with the French, and so John Churchill helped win the War of the Spanish Succession in the first decade of the 18th century, earning the dukedom of Marlborough. HM defence spending almost hit 20 percent of GDP in 1711.

Then in the 1740s it was the War of Austrian Succession and defence spending exceeded 11 percent of GDP in 1748. In the 1750s wars with the French over North America defence spending peaked at 19 percent of GDP in 1761. In the 1770s the North American colonists rebelled in the American Revolution and defence spending exceeded 12 percent of GDP in 1782.

During the 20 years of the Napoleonic Wars from 1795 to 1815 defence spending exceeded 10 percent of GDP for every year except 1803 and 1804 and peaked at 22.5 percent of GDP in 1814.

There were brief blips of defence spending for the Crimean and Boer Wars, but the real action was the two world wars in the 20th century, when defence spending exceeded 40 percent of GDP for eight of the 10 years of conflict.

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Spending Data Sources

Expenditure data since 1983 comes from HM Treasury’s Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis reports.

Detailed table of spending data sources here.

Gross Domestic Product data comes from measuringworth.com.

Central government spending data begins in 1692.

Local authority spending data begins in 1868.

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Data Sources for :

GDP: data from measuringworth.com (but now unsupported)
Spending: B.R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics
Debt: B.R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics

> spending data sources for other years

PESA 2025 Update

On July 23, 2025, HM Treasury published its Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) for 2025. ukpublicspending.co.uk uses the PESA tables of public spending at the "sub-function" level as its major data source for UK public spending.

ukpublicspending.co.uk has now updated its spending tables using data from PESA 2025. The update includes outturn spending data for 2023-24, and plans data for 2024-25. ukpublicspending.co.uk uses PESA's Table 6.4 for Central Government expenditure, Table 7.4 for Local Authority expenditure, and Table 8.3 for Public Corporation capital expenditure.

Since HM Treasury does not provide plans estimates for future Local Authority spending, ukpublicspending.co.uk provides "guesstimates" instead. This is done by extending the percentage increase in spending between 2023-24 and 2024-25 for each sub-function for the plans year. It is assumed that local authority spending reductions will not carry through to plans years.

Country and Region spending has been updated up to 2023-24. These are obtained from Chapters 9 and 10 in the PESA document.