The UK state pension is due to rise 3.9% from April 2027, pushing the full new state pension to more than £13,000 a year. The expected rise means the payment breaches the tax-free personal allowance.
An estimated 4.7 million pensioners (one in three) get the new state pension. People are eligible if they reached State Pension age after April 2016. Those before get the old state pension.
How much the pension will rise
The current new full state pension is £241.30 a week - £12,547.60 a year. That is set to rise to £250.70 a week - £13,036.40 a year in April 2027. If you were born on or before 27 June 1960, you could also get between £100 and £300 to help you pay your heating bills for winter 2026 to 2027.
Pensioners are only eligible for the full new state pension if they have paid enough National Insurance (NI) years.
The state pension is a guaranteed and inflation-proofed form of income. It provides a basic income for those without any other private or work pensions. It has got more generous thanks to what is known as the Triple Lock.
How the Triple Lock works
Under the Triple Lock, the state pension rises every year by whichever is highest: inflation, wage growth or 2.5%. It guarantees the increases in the state pension will never lag behind any of those three measures.
The new State Pension increases each year by whichever is the highest:
- Earnings – the average percentage growth in wages (in Great Britain)
- Prices – the percentage growth in prices in the UK measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI)
- 2.5%
That has been controversial, and the Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said his government will cap state pension rises to the highest of inflation or 2.5% in 2030 - but that will depend on whether he wins the next General Election.
Recent rises and future changes
Critics of the Triple Lock point out how out of sync it is with the rest of the population's income.
The state pension this financial year 2026-27 is £241.30 a week, or £12,548 a year, for those claiming the full new State Pension. That was set after a 4.8% rise the year before based on the increase in wages, which was the highest of the three measures.
Now the rise for the 2027-28 financial year is set to go up to £250.70 a week - £13,036.40 a year - following a 3.9% rise in wages that was confirmed in Labour market data published in September.
The figures mean the full state pension would have climbed by 35% in five years - well above the percentage wage rises for most of the working population in that time. In the 2022-23 tax year the full state pension was £185.15 a week.
The money spent on the state pension has risen but at the same time governments have increased the age at which people can claim it. The age people qualify for the state pension has now risen to 67. It will rise to 68 between April 2044 and April 2046.
As the expected full state pension rise is widely debated, discussion has also turned to just how affordable and fair the Triple Lock really is.
The UK government officially announces the annual rise in the state pension during the autumn budget. That will be on Wednesday, October 28, when Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Chancellor John Healey set out their tax and spending plans in detail and the rise in next year's pension will also be known.
