UK: average temperature by month 2024

Meanwhile, Reeves has a bunch of spending commitments aimed at easing the cost of living as inflation remains stubbornly high, including making up for a series of about-faces on planned welfare cuts. Overall, the budget was strikingly similar to Reeves’ first budget a little more than a year ago, even though she insisted at the time that it would be the one and only big tax-raising budget in this parliamentary term, due to run to 2029. UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) is responsible for making millions of decisions every year about who has the right to visit or stay in the country, with a firm emphasis on national security and a culture of customer satisfaction for people who come here legally. England, Wales and Scotland each have their own national symbols, including their national flags. Northern Ireland also has symbols, many of which are shared with the Republic of Ireland. Although the Retail Price Index is a commonly utilized inflation indicator, the UK also uses a newer method of calculating inflation, the Consumer Price Index.

• Meanwhile, Reeves has a bunch of spending commitments aimed at easing the cost of living as inflation remains stubbornly high, including making up for a series of about-faces on planned welfare cuts.
• A dynamic port city with a colourful past, Belfast is a vibrant cultural hub on Northern Ireland’s eastern coast.
• There was far less industrial action by 2024, however, due to settlements in many of the disputes, although some are ongoing as of 2025.
• The highest average temperature recorded in 2024 until November was in August, at 16.8 degrees Celsius.
• In the same month, the inflation rate for the Consumer Price Index was 3.6 percent, indicating that wages were rising faster than prices that month.
• The biggest change in terms of money raised is freezing the thresholds at which earners pay Britain’s different tax levels for a further three years from 2028, meaning as wages rise, more people fall into higher tax brackets.

Prior to the Treaty of Union

The United Kingdom comprises four geographic and historical parts—England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom contains most of the area and population of the British Isles—the geographic term for the group of islands that includes Great Britain, Ireland, and many smaller islands. Together England, Wales, and Scotland constitute Great Britain, the larger of the two principal islands, while Northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland constitute the second largest island, Ireland. England, occupying most of southern Great Britain, includes the Isles of Scilly off the southwest coast and the Isle of Wight off the southern coast.

Public sector net debt expressed as a percentage of GDP in the United Kingdom from 1900/01 to 2029/30

The entire contents of the budget were leaked half an hour before Treasury chief Rachel Reeves delivered the budget statement in the House of Commons. Prof Peter Murphy says working together would give the islands more influence in negotiations. The possibility of redesigning the Union Flag to include representation of Wales was discussed in 2007.541 The national anthem of the United Kingdom is “God Save the King”, with “King” replaced with “Queen” in the lyrics whenever the monarch is a woman. The UK has many gastropubs and is the birthplace of many alcoholic drinks including several beer styles such as pale ale, India pale ale, bitter, brown ale, porter, and stout. The number of craft beers and microbreweries has expanded rapidly in the last two decades.512 Other popular alcoholic drinks produced in the UK include Scotch whisky, English wine, gin, perry and cider.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain,m is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland,n with a population of over 69 million in 2024. The capital and largest city of both England and the UK non gamstop casinos is London; Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are the national capitals of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The CPI, along with the CPIH (Consumer Price Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs) are usually preferred by the UK government, but the RPI is still used in certain instances. Increases in rail fares for example, are calculated using the RPI, while increases in pension payments are calculated using CPI, when this is used as the uprating factor. The use of one inflation measure over the other can therefore have a significant impact on people’s lives in the UK.

At its height in the 1920s, the empire encompassed almost a quarter of the world’s landmass and population, and was the largest empire in history. However, its involvement in the First World War and in the Second World War damaged Britain’s economic power, and a global wave of decolonisation led to the independence of most British colonies. Like the Retail Price Index, the Consumer Price Index inflation rate also reached a recent peak in October 2022. In that month, prices were rising by 11.1 percent and did not fall below double figures until April 2023. This fall was largely due to slower price increases in key sectors such as energy, which drove a significant amount of the 2022 wave of inflation.

Despite having one of the highest levels of income inequality in the OECD,268269 the UK has a very high HDI ranking, including when adjusted for inequality. As of 2025 the UK unemployment rate is 4.7%,270 which is moderately low by European standards. The United Kingdom has made significant contributions to the world economy, especially in technology and industry.

Wales, a congeries of Celtic kingdoms lying in Great Britain’s southwest, was formally united with England by the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1542. Scotland, ruled from London since 1603, formally was joined with England and Wales in 1707 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain. (The adjective “British” came into use at this time to refer to all the kingdom’s peoples.) Ireland came under English control during the 1600s and was formally united with Great Britain through the Act of Union of 1800. The republic of Ireland gained its independence in 1922, but six of Ulster’s nine counties remained part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland.