In 2006 UK healthcare spending was about £90 billion, and healthcare spending was increasing strongly, reaching £120 billion in 2011, but then moderated. Healthcare spending exploded during COVID to £218 billion in 2020. For the year ending March 2025 healthcare spending was £241.8 billion.

In terms of Gross Domestic Product UK healthcare spending was 6.1 percent of GDP in 2006, and steadily increased as a percent of GDP to a peak of 7.5 percent of GDP in 2011.

In the 2010s healthcare spending was slowly declining as a percent of GDP, but then exploded over 10 percent GDP in the COVID year of 2020. For the year ending March 2025 healthcare spending was 8.4 percent GDP.

UK Healthcare Since World War II

Chart S.33t: UK Healthcare since 1947

With the creation of the National Health Service in 1948 UK healthcare spending increased rapidly from 2 percent of GDP in 1947 to a peak of 3.4 percent of GDP in 1951 before declining to 3 percent of GDP in the mid 1950s.

Starting in 1956 healthcare spending began a long increase, reaching 4 percent GDP in 1970. It then resumed a slower growth, reaching 4.1 percent of GDP in 1973 before blowing off at 4.9 percent GDP in 1975 in the inflation of the 1970s.

The inflationary 1970s saw two peaks in healthcare spending, at 4.9 percent GDP in 1975 and 5.1 percent GDP in 1982. But then healthcare spending declined, down to 4.3 percent of GDP in 1990.

In the early 1990s healthcare spending increased, reaching 5.5 percent GDP in 1995, and then declined to 5.1 percent by 1998. In the 2000s healthcare spending increased strongly, to 7.7 percent of GDP in 2010 and then declined down to 7.1 percent of GDP by 2019. Healthcare spending jumped above 10 percent GDP in response to COVID in 2021.

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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 2016_2026:

Sources for 2016:

GDP: OBR EFO supp. economy tables
Spending: HM Treasury PESA
Debt: OBR Public Finances Databank

Sources for 2026:

GDP: OBR EFO supp. economy tables
Spending: HM Treasury PESA
Debt: OBR Public Finances Databank

> 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.