Cost of living

A white sliced loaf cost £1.34 on average in August 2026, and a dozen free-range eggs £3.93

Average price of everyday shopping items in shops across the UK, each for a fixed size, monthly, 1971 to 2026. Pence, as paid at the time.

Latest figures

Notes

• Each average is of the prices the ONS collects every month in shops across the UK for its inflation figures, for an item it describes in a fixed way and at a fixed size, such as an 800g white sliced loaf. Prices vary from shop to shop, so the average is a typical price, not what any one shop charges.
• Price at the time is the price as paid then. After inflation shows each price adjusted to August 2026 prices, using the ONS measure of rises in the cost of living (CPIH), so a price from years ago is shown as what it would cost today. CPIH starts in 1988, so that view does too.
• Each line breaks between January 2025 and February 2025. Until then the averages are the ones the ONS published with the Retail Prices Index. Since then they come from its shopping prices comparison tool, which groups and averages prices in a new way and, for many foods since March 2026, also uses supermarkets' sales records. The descriptions of the items differ slightly (a roasting chicken then, a whole chicken now), so a jump at the break can be a change of method rather than of price.
• Free-range eggs start in January 2025, from the shopping prices comparison tool. The ONS's earlier average, published with the Retail Prices Index, was for large free-range eggs only, a different item, so it isn't shown.
• The ONS calls the newer averages official statistics in development.

Sources

• Office for National Statistics, Shopping prices comparison tool
• Office for National Statistics, Consumer price inflation (RPI average prices CZOH, CZMV, CZNN, CZNJ, CZNP, CZOM and CZNW)
• Office for National Statistics, Consumer price inflation (CPIH all items, L522)

More on cost of living

• The average home cost 6.7 years of a typical full-time worker's pay in 2025
• After inflation, household electricity prices were 35% higher and gas prices 12% higher than in 2015, in August 2026
• After inflation, beer in pubs and bars cost 17% more in August 2026 than in January 1987
• Gas and electricity for a typical household cost £1,658 a year in August 2026
• UK households paid 29.7p per unit of electricity and 7.0p per unit of gas in 2025, including taxes
• Petrol cost 175.3p a litre and diesel 200.0p at UK filling stations in the week of 12 October 2026
• A pint of lager cost an average of £5.15 in the UK in the 12 months to August 2026