Inflation in the United Kingdom rises to 9.4% last month, breaking a 40-year record, as food and fuel prices increase.

The economy of the United Kingdom is a highly developed social market and market-orientated economy. It is the sixth-largest national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), eighth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP), and twenty fifth-highest by GDP per capita, constituting 3.3% of world GDP. GDP rebounded quickly in 2021, exceeding its pre-pandemic level in November, although the rate of consumer price inflation was rising due to higher energy and transport costs. In March 2022, the BoE started quantitative tightening (the opposite of quantitative easing), aiming to reduce its government bond holdings accumulated since the Great Recession to zero by the year 2071. With annual inflation approaching a 40-year high of 11%, the BoE gradually increased the base rate to 1.25% during the first half of 2022. The UK was not alone: in the year to May 2022, headline consumer prices rose by 10% across the Eurozone and 14% in the United States. About 115,000 postal workers who are members of the CWU were balloted in recent weeks and voted 96.7% in favor of strikes, on a turnout of 77%. They are demanding a bigger pay rise than the 2% they have been awarded by Royal Mail. The company is offering a further pay rise of 3.5% but only if the union agrees to a series changes.