What the latest Universal Credit Health data tells us about benefit claims across Britain

New data out this week shows that the proportion of UC claimants in receipt of UC health continues to rise: over a third (37 per cent) of people in receipt of UC are in the health group, up from 32 per cent a year ago. This reflects both the ongoing migration of claimants from legacy benefits onto UC as well as a genuine increase in health-related benefit claims. Below, we unpack what these trends show, and what they mean for the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Health-related benefit claims are spread unevenly across Britain
Across Britain as a whole, 37 per cent of UC claimants are in the health group. But the picture is uneven across the country: only three-in-ten (29 per cent) of claimants in London are in the health group, while more than two-fifths of those in the North East, Wales and Scotland are in the health group.

When we zoom in to look at local authority level data, the disparity becomes even starker. For example, in Inverclyde over half (52 per cent) of UC claimants are in the UC health group. Indeed, the ten local authorities with the highest proportion of UC claimants in the health group are all in Scotland and Wales, with the proportions ranging from 47 per cent to 52 per cent – well above the British average. On the other hand, in Newham, less than a quarter (24 per cent) of UC claimants are in the health group, and the ten local authorities with the lowest proportion of UC claimants in the health group are in or around London.

We should be careful before jumping to conclusions based just off these statistics, though. The pattern partly reflects trends in ill health across the country (with the prevalence of ill health and disability particularly high in parts of Wales, Scotland and the North East), and the fact that these regions and nations are older than average. But the proportion of all UC claimants who are in the UC health group will be influenced also by the number of people in receipt of UC for other reasons. And claims for UC for non-health reason are also unevenly distributed across the country: in particular, more claimants (including those who are in work) receive UC in London and the South East to reflect the high costs of housing. So the geographical variation in the share of UC recipients who in the UC health group reflects geographical variation in the denominator as well as the numerator.

Unsurprisingly, among UC claimants it is the older adults who are most likely to be in receipt of UC health. More than three-fifths (62 per cent) of UC claimants aged 60-64 are in receipt of a health element, almost double the proportion of UC claimants aged 16-59 (34 per cent). But even among younger claimants, health-related UC claims are not uncommon: 24 per cent of claimants aged 16-19, and 34 per cent of those aged 20-24, are in receipt of UC health.

The fact that such a high proportion of UC claimants in their 60s are in receipt of UC health partly in part reflects the impact of the rising State Pension Age: in previous decades, people in a similar position would not have shown up in the working-age benefits system, instead being eligible for the State Pension and Pension Credit. This raises important questions for policy makers: how should we design the UC system to best support a rising number of adults in their 50s and 60s who may have material barriers to work?

Migration from ESA to UC is coming to an end – this is pushing up the UC health caseload
Of course, when looking at trends in UC health, we must bear in mind the impact of the ‘Move to Universal Credit’ campaign, in which people who were previously in receipt of ESA were migrated on to UC. This took off in earnest in 2024, with the final migration notices being issues this week. As a result, there has been an ‘artificial’ increase in the number of people entering the UC health caseload over the past year.

More broadly, we would expect the transition from the legacy benefits system (with lots of different benefits like ESA, JSA and tax credits) to the ‘one stop shop’ UC system to lead to an increase in health-related claims. For example, it might seem easier for someone receiving UC to go through a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and go on to receive a health element within the UC system, as they can do this without risking losing their basic entitlement. This might have felt more difficult under the legacy benefits system, since a claimant would risk ending their support through JSA or tax credits if they chose to instead make a claim for ESA. Indeed, there is evidence that a significant number of claimants previously receiving tax credits end up in the ‘no work requirements’ conditionality group when they move to UC, suggesting that there is a group of claimants whose disability was not taken into account in the legacy benefits system, but that this is taken into account once they move to UC.

The impact of people migrating from ESA to UC can be seen by looking at the number of people successfully going through a WCA over time – a measure of ‘onflows’ to out-of-work health related benefits. Those moving to UC from ESA are counted as ‘new’ claimants, and we do not have data available that shows us the number of people going through WCAs after leaving ESA compared to those making a genuinely ‘new’ claim for health-related benefits. But we can see that both the number of initial WCAs undertaken has risen considerably over the past year, and so too has the proportion of WCAs that result in an additional payment. This is to be expected: we know that people are more likely to be awarded benefits after a repeat WCA, because they’ve already passed the hurdle of a WCA before.

In the most recent data from 2025, four-in-five (80 per cent) of those going through a UC WCA end up in the ‘LCWRA’ group (people in this group receive a top up of £423 per month, and have no work search requirements). Before the recent change, the proportion of people who receive additional benefits from the WCA stood at about 65-70 per cent, similar to both most of the 2019-2023 period (barring a brief spike in Covid-19) and much of 2013-2015 (although during this period, additional payments could be at a lower rate, when those in the ‘LCW’ group received additional financial support). But it is certainly true that the proportion of people ‘successfully’ going through a WCA has risen since 2010.

Beyond migration: there has been a genuine rise in health-related claims

But it would be wrong to conclude that all we are seeing is movement from ESA to UC: there has been a genuine increase in the out-of-work health-related benefits caseload. Indeed, when we combine all of these benefits, we see that the number of families claiming a health-related benefit is rising fast. There are now 3.1 million families in receipt of one of these benefits – up from 2.9 million a year ago and 2.3 million on the eve of the pandemic. This is a big shift that deserves the attention of policy makers.

The Government has attempted to respond to this upwards pressure by introducing the UC Bill, which passed through Parliament earlier this month. This will halve the amount of health-related UC paid to most new claimants from 2026 onwards (from £423 to £217 per month), while the standard element of UC will be gradually increased for all claimants. The DWP hopes that by narrowing the gap in support between standard and health-related UC claims, they will lower the incentive for people to go through a WCA. But it remains unclear how far the reforms will reduce the number of people making new health-related claims, or what the impact will be on those affected.

But the bigger question is how UC can be made to work better for the large and growing group of existing claimants with health conditions. This is a varied group (it includes a growing number of young people with poor mental health and older people approaching retirement age) and so policy makers must work to improve the system to build trust with these claimants, offering them genuine support to enter work that is appropriate for them. This is a key issue the new Secretary of State will need to grapple with if the benefits system is to support people with health conditions more effectively, while also maintaining public confidence and fiscal sustainability.