Universal Credit employment statistics: 37.7% of claimants work

Universal Credit employment rates statistics published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on 18 August 2026 show that 3.1 million people on Universal Credit were in any employment in April 2026. That was 37.7% of everyone on the benefit, counting both PAYE employment and self-employment. A year earlier, 3.2 million people were in work, which was 41.9% of the total.

The figures cover Great Britain. They arrive as the number of people on Universal Credit has reached the highest level on record.

How many Universal Credit claimants are employed

According to the DWP’s quarterly bulletin, 3.1 million people on Universal Credit were in any employment in April 2026. Put another way, of every 100 people on the benefit, about 38 were in a job or self-employed, compared with about 42 a year earlier. The remainder were not recorded as being in either form of work.

The headline caseload is also rising. The DWP said there were 8.4 million people on Universal Credit in May 2026, “the highest number on record”. That is up from 7.7 million in May 2025 and from 8.3 million in February 2026. The department notes that Universal Credit has been rising since March 2022, when the figure was 5.5 million.

Universal Credit and employment figures UK: the trend

The employment share has slipped over the past year while the headcount of working claimants has barely moved. The DWP’s February bulletin put the share at 37.8% in January 2026, against 43.3% in January 2025. The table brings the main comparisons together, using the DWP’s published figures.

*Our calculation from the DWP’s 15% fall; the department did not publish the earlier figure in the bulletin summary.

What is behind the fall in the share in work

The main driver is a larger caseload rather than fewer workers. The DWP said Move to Universal Credit claimants, who were moved over from older benefits, made up 73.2% of the increase between May 2025 and May 2026. The number of those claimants peaked at 1.7 million in December 2025 and has been stable since.

Most of those who moved over are not subject to work requirements. In December 2025, the DWP said, 1.2 million of the 1.7 million (69.2%) were in the ‘no work requirements’ group. Across the whole caseload, the proportion in that group has risen to 51%, from 50% in the February bulletin.

New entries have also slowed. The DWP recorded an average of 40,000 claims a week in May 2026, down from 52,000 a year earlier, and 31,000 starts a week, down from 45,000. The department says Move to Universal Credit is close to complete, with just over 2,000 migration notices sent between January and the end of April 2026, compared with 340,000 in the same period of 2025.

What it means for claimants and job prospects

These are caseload-wide figures, and they do not describe any one person’s position. A falling employment share does not mean fewer people are finding work. Because many of the newer claimants joined through migration and fall in the group with no work requirements, the share is pulled down even when the number of working claimants holds steady at around 3.1 million.

Some household figures are worth knowing. The DWP reported 7.2 million households on Universal Credit in May 2026, of which 6.7 million (94%) had a payment. About 3.3 million households (47%) had at least one deduction taken from their entitlement. The 164,000 households receiving the childcare element were 15% fewer than in May 2025, which the DWP said is roughly a 2 percentage point fall in the proportion of working households with children receiving it.

Claimants wanting to know where they stand should check the work requirements shown in their own online account, rather than rely on averages. Northern Ireland is reported separately: the Department for Communities counted 272,280 Universal Credit claimants in February 2026, up 24% on a year earlier. Great Britain figures will now come only quarterly, in February, May, August and November, so the next full update is due in November.