Size of the economy vs what each person gets
Real GDP and real GDP per head, indexed 2000 = 100. The gap between the lines is population growth.
Inflation and the price of money
CPI (annual average), Bank Rate (end of year), 10-year gilt yield (average), %
Slack in the economy
Output gap (% of potential GDP, OBR-style) and unemployment rate, %
Size of the state
Public sector headcount (millions) and share of all employment (%)
People
UK population (millions) and annual growth (%)
The pound in your pocket
What a £1 coin from 2000 buys today (pence, CPI-deflated), against broad money (M4) and cash GDP, both indexed 2000 = 100. If money grows faster than the economy, the pound shrinks.
Houses vs wages
Average UK house price (£000s) and average annual pay (£000s, regular pay × 52), with the ratio between them on the right
Real pay and the dollar
Wages after inflation (2000 = 100) and the pound against the US dollar (annual average; held flat in projection)
The national debt and what it costs to carry
Public sector net debt (% GDP) and debt interest (% GDP). Interest follows the gilt yield with a lag because the debt refinances slowly.
How the projection works (deliberately simple)
- GDP compounds at the growth dial. GDP per head is GDP divided by population, so per-head growth ≈ GDP growth − population growth. This is the "bigger but not richer" effect.
- Potential growth = productivity + population growth. Output gap moves each year by (actual growth − potential growth), so growing faster than capacity opens a positive gap and vice versa. Unemployment moves against the gap (Okun's law, ×0.4).
- Inflation = underlying dial + 0.4 × output gap. Spend past capacity and prices rise; run below it and they fall. This is the whole MMT vs orthodoxy argument in one line.
- Debt:
debt = debt × (1 + r) ÷ (1 + nominal growth) + primary deficit. The effective interest raterdrifts toward the gilt dial at 1/12 per year (UK debt has a ~14-year average maturity). Debt interest = r × debt. Nominal growth = real growth + inflation. - Public sector headcount compounds at its dial; its share = headcount ÷ (employment rate × population), assuming a flat 48% of the population in work.
- Pound in your pocket = 100 ÷ cumulative CPI. M4 grows at nominal GDP plus its dial; the chart plots both as indices so you can see whether money is outrunning output. Wages grow at inflation + productivity (real pay only rises if productivity does). House prices grow at inflation plus their dial; the house-to-pay ratio falls when the dial is below zero. GBP/USD is not projected.
- Nothing here feeds back into growth: raising the deficit dial does not raise the growth dial. That is on purpose, because whether it would is the contested question. Turn both and see what you believe.
Sources. ONS Quarterly National Accounts (Q1 2026, 30 Jun 2026) and First Quarterly Estimate (Q2 2026); ONS CPI and Labour Market Overview (Jun 2026); ONS Public Sector Employment (Mar 2026); Bank of England Bank Rate history and yield curves; OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook output-gap estimates; ONS mid-year population estimates and 2024-based projections; Bank of England M4 (June 2026 £3,308bn; the UK's headline broad aggregate, used here in place of M2, which the BoE does not treat as its main measure); ONS/HM Land Registry UK House Price Index (June 2026 £272,000; earlier years on the post-2023 methodology, so levels differ from older published figures); ONS Average Weekly Earnings, regular pay, whole economy; GBP/USD annual averages. 2026 values are year-to-date or estimates (growth ≈1.2%, CPI ≈2.9%, Bank Rate 3.75%, 10y gilt ≈4.9%, unemployment 4.9–5.0%, public sector 6.19m, M4 £3.31tn, house price £272k, regular pay ≈£737/week, GBP/USD ≈1.33). Earlier years rounded to current ONS vintage; public-sector series contains reclassification breaks (banks 2008–09 and 2013–14, colleges 2012, academies ongoing). Output gap is an estimate, not a measurement. Not financial advice.