Government · UK · Office for National Statistics
UK cost of living rises for 79% of adults, ONS April 2026
Almost 4 in 5 UK adults (79%) reported their cost of living rose over the past month, up from 56% in February 2026. Concern about misinformation in future UK elections sits at 78%, the most-cited election worry across the population.
Source published Summarised
Key findings at a glance
- 79% UK adults whose cost of living rose vs one month ago (April 2026 OPN wave).
- 56% UK adults reporting cost-of-living rises two months earlier (February 2026), showing the rate of pressure accelerating.
- 90% UK adults citing the cost of living as a top issue facing the country.
- 96% Cost-of-living concern among UK adults aged 16 to 29 years, the most-squeezed cohort.
- 78% UK adults most concerned about misinformation, disinformation and "fake news" when thinking about future UK elections.
- 63% UK adults concerned about bias in the media when thinking about future UK elections.
- 53% UK adults concerned about foreign influence on UK election results.
- 51% UK adults who agree elections in the UK are fair and democratic, down from 58% a year earlier.
- 38% UK adults who think they cannot save any money over the next 12 months, up from 33% in March 2026.
- 92% Share of cost-squeezed adults citing food shopping as the main reason their costs rose.
- 62% UK adults spending less on non-essentials because of cost-of-living rises.
- 37% UK adults cutting back on non-essential journeys, up from 25% the same period last year.
What the report covers
The Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) is the ONS regular survey of adults in Great Britain. The April 2026 wave ran from 1 to 26 April, sampling 8,720 households drawn from prior Transformed Labour Force Survey and OPN respondents. The 3,650 responding adults give a 42% response rate, large enough to support national estimates and most demographic cross-breaks.
The bulletin covers four themes relevant to anyone reading the UK consumer mood: which issues the public sees as the most important facing the country, how cost-of-living pressure is changing month on month, the actions households are taking in response, and a fielding on confidence in UK elections (fairness, plus the concerns voters carry into them).
Datasets released alongside the bulletin break the findings down further: household finances, social media use and attitudes towards elections, personal well-being and loneliness, social mobility, working arrangements, and winter pressures, all from the same April 2026 fieldwork.
What this means for UK marketers
For UK marketers, the April 2026 bulletin is a sharp reminder that the cost-of-living story has not eased: the share of adults reporting rising costs has climbed from 56% in February to 79% in April, with food shopping cited by 92% of those affected. Discretionary spend assumptions baked into Q4 2025 plans need a fresh look, especially for ecommerce, hospitality, and home-improvement clients pitching premium tickets to value-sensitive cohorts. Our recent Deloitte UK consumer confidence and energy-cost outlook reports pointed to the same softening pattern, and this ONS wave confirms it on a larger representative sample.
The age split sharpens the targeting picture. Adults aged 16 to 29 are the most squeezed, with 96% naming the cost of living as a top concern and 28% expecting to be unable to save anything over the next year. Younger audiences are less likely to cut back on home energy use (17% versus 49% for the 50 to 69 cohort) but more likely to cut back on food spend, which is a different lever for retail and grocery brands than for utilities or insurers. The UK cost-of-living crisis running since 2021 continues to compound on the youngest cohort first.
The election-fairness finding has a quieter, second-order impact. Trust in UK elections has dropped from 58% to 51% in a year, and 78% of adults now cite misinformation as their top election concern, with 63% flagging media bias. For paid-media buyers this is a placement-quality flag: brand-suitability filters need to weight authority and source clarity higher in any UK B2C or political-adjacent buy, and our UK news trust work shows the same pattern from the Reuters Institute side. For SEO and content teams running search-engine-optimisation work, EEAT signals (clear bylines, citation discipline, named expert reviewers) are no longer a nice-to-have on YMYL content, they are baseline trust currency for an audience that is already filtering hard for credibility.
The practical takeaway for any UK digital marketing campaign in May and June 2026: lead with value, evidence, and named sources, and assume your audience is more price-sensitive and more sceptical than they were last quarter.
How they got the data
The April 2026 wave of the OPN sampled 8,720 households drawn from prior Transformed Labour Force Survey and Opinions and Lifestyle Survey respondents, with 3,650 adults responding (a 42% response rate). Fieldwork ran from 1 to 26 April 2026, and the published estimates apply survey weighting based on 2024 mid-year population estimates, constrained to 2022-based national population projection totals. Where comparisons are drawn between months or sub-groups, ONS publishes confidence intervals in the supporting datasets, which we have used here when calling out month-on-month changes.
Full design and quality detail is set out in the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey QMI, which covers sampling frame, weighting approach, and known limitations on smaller demographic cells.
Government · UK
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From Office for National Statistics · published 15/05/2026