UK Base Rate Tracker — April 2026

Current Position — Bank Rate at 4.50% (April 2026)

At its meeting ending 19 March 2026 the MPC voted 7-2 to hold the Bank Rate at 4.50%, with the two dissenters (external members) voting for a 25 bps cut. This marked the fourth hold since the most recent cut in November 2025. The accompanying Monetary Policy Summary highlighted that services inflation and private-sector regular pay growth remain the key sticking points on the path back to the 2% CPI target.

The 4.50% level is 75 bps below the peak of 5.25% (reached 3 August 2023 and held for 12 months), but still 425 bps above the 0.25% pandemic-era trough of March 2020. For the roughly 1.6 million UK households rolling off a sub-2% fixed rate during 2026 (UK Finance, Q1 2026 Household Finance Review), the current level continues to represent a substantial payment shock.

Indicator	Reading	Source / Release Date
Bank Rate	4.50%	BoE, 20 Mar 2026
CPI inflation (12m)	2.7%	ONS, Mar 2026 release
Core CPI (12m)	3.2%	ONS, Mar 2026 release
Services CPI (12m)	4.1%	ONS, Mar 2026 release
Private-sector regular pay (3m YoY)	4.6%	ONS Labour Market, Mar 2026
Unemployment rate (LFS)	4.3%	ONS, Mar 2026 release
Quarterly GDP (Q4 2025)	+0.2%	ONS, 14 Feb 2026
2yr OIS (SONIA) rate	4.18%	BoE yield curve, 17 Apr 2026
Average 2yr fixed mortgage (75% LTV)	4.62%	Moneyfacts, 15 Apr 2026
Average 5yr fixed mortgage (75% LTV)	4.47%	Moneyfacts, 15 Apr 2026
Average SVR	8.11%	Moneyfacts, 15 Apr 2026

The combination of sticky services inflation, resilient wage growth and a labour market that is loosening only gradually has kept the MPC's central forecast for a return to the 2% target in 2027 rather than 2026, according to the February 2026 Monetary Policy Report.

Full Bank Rate History 2008–2026 (Every MPC Change)

The table below lists every change in the Bank of England Bank Rate since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008. Hold decisions are omitted for readability — the rate remained at the level shown until the next dated change. Vote splits are taken from the Minutes of each MPC meeting and the accompanying Monetary Policy Summary.

Effective Date	New Bank Rate	Change	MPC Vote	Context
10 Apr 2008	5.00%	-0.25%	7-2 cut	Pre-Lehman easing
8 Oct 2008	4.50%	-0.50%	Unanimous (emergency, coordinated with Fed/ECB)	Lehman fallout
6 Nov 2008	3.00%	-1.50%	Unanimous	Deepening recession
4 Dec 2008	2.00%	-1.00%	Unanimous	Recession intensifies
8 Jan 2009	1.50%	-0.50%	Unanimous	Continued easing
5 Feb 2009	1.00%	-0.50%	Unanimous	Quantitative easing approaches
5 Mar 2009	0.50%	-0.50%	Unanimous	QE programme launched
7 Aug 2016	0.25%	-0.25%	9-0	Post-Brexit referendum easing
2 Nov 2017	0.50%	+0.25%	7-2 hike	First rise in a decade
2 Aug 2018	0.75%	+0.25%	9-0	Gradual normalisation
11 Mar 2020	0.25%	-0.50%	Unanimous (emergency)	COVID-19 shock
19 Mar 2020	0.10%	-0.15%	Unanimous (emergency)	Pandemic trough
16 Dec 2021	0.25%	+0.15%	8-1 hike	Inflation lift-off
3 Feb 2022	0.50%	+0.25%	5-4 (four wanted 50 bps)	Hawkish surprise
17 Mar 2022	0.75%	+0.25%	8-1	Russia-Ukraine invasion
5 May 2022	1.00%	+0.25%	6-3	Three voted for 50 bps
16 Jun 2022	1.25%	+0.25%	6-3	Three voted for 50 bps
4 Aug 2022	1.75%	+0.50%	8-1	First 50 bps move since 1995
22 Sep 2022	2.25%	+0.50%	5-4 (three wanted 75, one wanted 25)	Truss mini-budget
3 Nov 2022	3.00%	+0.75%	7-2	Largest hike since 1989
15 Dec 2022	3.50%	+0.50%	6-3	Two held, one wanted 75
2 Feb 2023	4.00%	+0.50%	7-2	Two held
23 Mar 2023	4.25%	+0.25%	7-2	Banking wobble (SVB/Credit Suisse)
11 May 2023	4.50%	+0.25%	7-2	Core inflation concerns
22 Jun 2023	5.00%	+0.50%	7-2	Surprise 50 bps
3 Aug 2023	5.25%	+0.25%	6-3	Cycle peak
1 Aug 2024	5.00%	-0.25%	5-4 cut	First cut in 4 years
7 Nov 2024	4.75%	-0.25%	8-1	Post-Budget easing
6 Feb 2025	4.50%	-0.25%	7-2 (two wanted 50)	Growth weakness
19 Jun 2025	4.25%	-0.25%	6-3	Services inflation easing
7 Aug 2025	4.25%	Hold	5-4 hold	Hawkish hold, narrow vote
6 Nov 2025	4.50%	+0.25%	6-3 hike	Inflation re-acceleration surprise
18 Dec 2025	4.50%	Hold	7-2 hold	Two wanted cut
6 Feb 2026	4.50%	Hold	7-2 hold	Monetary Policy Report meeting
20 Mar 2026	4.50%	Hold	7-2 hold	Current setting

Note: the November 2025 hike was the first upward move since the August 2023 cycle peak and caught a majority of sell-side economists off guard. Markets had priced roughly a 30% probability of a hike ahead of the meeting, according to the SONIA curve on the preceding day.

How the Monetary Policy Committee Actually Works

The Bank Rate is set by the Monetary Policy Committee, a nine-person body established under the Bank of England Act 1998. Understanding the MPC's composition and voting mechanics is key to interpreting each decision.

Composition. The committee has nine members: the Governor (chair), three Deputy Governors (Monetary Policy, Financial Stability, and Markets & Banking), the BoE's Chief Economist, and four external members appointed by the Chancellor for staggered three-year terms (renewable once). External members are typically academic economists, former policymakers or senior market practitioners.

Meeting cadence. The MPC holds eight scheduled meetings per year, approximately every six weeks. Four of these — February, May, August and November — are accompanied by the Monetary Policy Report, which contains updated economic projections. The remaining four are interim meetings with a shorter Monetary Policy Summary.

Voting. Each member casts one vote. The decision is taken by simple majority. When there is no majority, the Governor has a casting vote, though in practice the committee has always reached a majority decision. All votes are published in the Minutes (released alongside the decision) and in the Monetary Policy Summary.

MPC Member (as of April 2026)	Role	Term ends	Broad leaning
Andrew Bailey	Governor	Jun 2028	Centrist
Clare Lombardelli	Deputy Governor — Monetary Policy	Jul 2029	Centrist
Sarah Breeden	Deputy Governor — Financial Stability	Nov 2028	Centrist
Dave Ramsden	Deputy Governor — Markets & Banking	Sep 2027	Dovish-leaning
Huw Pill	Chief Economist	Open	Hawkish-leaning
Megan Greene	External	Jun 2026	Hawkish
Catherine Mann	External	Aug 2027	Hawkish
Swati Dhingra	External	Aug 2026	Dovish
Alan Taylor	External	Aug 2027	Dovish-leaning

The ordering of published votes is not alphabetical — instead, the Minutes list members by the direction of their vote, which makes the "shape" of a split instantly visible. A 7-2 with two dovish dissents (e.g. Dhingra, Taylor) is read by markets very differently from a 7-2 with two hawkish dissents (e.g. Mann, Greene), even though the headline looks identical.

What Drives MPC Rate Decisions

The MPC's statutory mandate is to maintain price stability — specifically, to keep CPI inflation at 2% over the medium term — and, subject to that, to support the government's economic policy including objectives for growth and employment. In practice, members weigh a consistent set of indicators at each meeting.

1. Headline and core CPI inflation. Released monthly by the ONS. Headline CPI is the target, but the committee scrutinises core (ex-food, energy, alcohol, tobacco) because it strips out volatile components. A sustained divergence between the two signals domestically generated inflation.

2. Services inflation. The MPC has repeatedly flagged services CPI as the best gauge of persistent domestic price pressure, because services are labour-intensive and therefore reflect wage dynamics. Services CPI at 4.1% in the March 2026 release remains well above the pre-pandemic average of 2.6%.

3. Pay growth. Private-sector regular pay (ex-bonuses) is the committee's preferred wage measure. The MPC's rule of thumb is that pay growth of around 3.0–3.5% is consistent with 2% inflation given UK productivity trends. Current pay growth at 4.6% is therefore seen as roughly 1.1–1.6 percentage points too strong.

4. Labour market slack. Measured via the LFS unemployment rate, vacancies (ONS Vacancy Survey) and the experimental HMRC PAYE RTI employees series. A loosening labour market cools pay growth with a lag.

5. GDP and demand. Quarterly GDP, the monthly GDP estimate and PMI surveys (S&P Global / CIPS) help the MPC judge the output gap. Weak growth relative to trend opens disinflationary space.

6. Financial conditions. Sterling, gilt yields, mortgage spreads and corporate credit spreads. A sustained tightening in financial conditions does part of the MPC's job for it.

7. Inflation expectations. Household (Bank of England/Ipsos Inflation Attitudes Survey), business (Decision Maker Panel) and market-implied (5y5y inflation swap) expectations. An un-anchoring of expectations is the MPC's worst-case scenario.

The MPC publishes its central projections four times a year in the Monetary Policy Report, alongside fan charts that quantify the uncertainty. The February 2026 Report projected CPI inflation at 2.3% at the two-year horizon and 1.9% at the three-year horizon, conditional on the market-implied Bank Rate path at that time.

How Base Rate Changes Flow Through to UK Mortgages

Base rate changes do not reach all mortgage borrowers the same way, or at the same speed. The transmission mechanism differs sharply across product types, and the composition of the UK mortgage stock has changed significantly over the past decade.

Standard Variable Rate (SVR). Lenders have complete contractual discretion to move their SVRs whenever they wish. In practice, the major UK high-street lenders pass through base rate changes within one to two monthly billing cycles, though the pass-through is rarely exact — lenders often widen spreads after a cut (keeping some of the benefit) and narrow them after a hike (absorbing some of the cost). According to UK Finance, only around 7% of outstanding mortgages are on SVR as of Q1 2026.

Tracker mortgages. Trackers are contractually linked to the Bank Rate by a fixed margin (e.g. "Bank Rate + 0.74%"). Pass-through is automatic and occurs at the start of the next billing period after the rate change, typically 1–30 days. Trackers account for roughly 9% of the outstanding stock.

Fixed rates — pipeline effect. New fixed-rate deals are priced off the swap curve, not the current Bank Rate. The 2-year swap (SONIA OIS) drives 2-year fixed pricing; the 5-year swap drives 5-year fixed pricing. Swap rates already embed the market's expectation of future MPC moves, which is why a "fully priced" cut produces no change in headline fixed-rate products. The lag from Bank Rate change to new fix appearing on comparison sites is typically 1 to 6 weeks, depending on lender capital and funding positions.

Fixed rates — back book. Existing fixed-rate borrowers are insulated completely until their deal ends, at which point they roll off onto SVR (if they do nothing) or remortgage onto a new rate. UK Finance estimates 1.6 million fixed-rate deals will mature during 2026.

Product Type	Share of Outstanding Stock (Q1 2026)	Pass-through Speed	Pass-through Completeness
Fixed rate (in-term)	~84%	None until deal ends	N/A
Standard Variable Rate	~7%	1–2 months	60–90% of the move
Tracker (lifetime or term)	~9%	Next billing cycle	100% (contractual)

The dominance of fixed-rate mortgages in the UK stock means that the full impact of the 2022–2023 tightening cycle is still being felt. Each month, tens of thousands of households roll off pre-2022 fixes at rates below 2% onto new fixes above 4%, even as the headline Bank Rate edges lower.

What a 0.25% Base Rate Cut Saves on a Typical Mortgage

A 25 bps change in the Bank Rate only directly reduces payments for tracker and SVR borrowers. For fixed-rate borrowers, the relevant comparison is between their existing deal rate and the rate available on remortgage — where swap-implied moves may already be in the price. The table below shows the monthly payment impact of a 25 bps reduction on four common mortgage balances, assuming a 25-year repayment term and immediate full pass-through.

Mortgage Balance	Monthly payment at 4.50%	Monthly payment at 4.25%	Monthly saving	Annual saving
£100,000	£556	£542	£14	£168
£150,000	£834	£813	£21	£252
£200,000	£1,112	£1,084	£28	£336
£250,000	£1,390	£1,355	£35	£420
£300,000	£1,668	£1,626	£42	£504
£400,000	£2,224	£2,168	£56	£672
£500,000	£2,780	£2,710	£70	£840

A second worked example — this time showing the cumulative impact of a series of 25 bps cuts — is useful for households deciding whether to lock in a 5-year fix now or wait. On a £200,000 balance over 25 years:

Bank Rate path	Equivalent mortgage rate	Monthly payment (£200k, 25yr)	Total interest over 25yr
Hold at 4.50%	5.00%	£1,169	£150,833
-25 bps to 4.25%	4.75%	£1,140	£141,897
-50 bps to 4.00%	4.50%	£1,112	£133,052
-75 bps to 3.75%	4.25%	£1,084	£124,303
-100 bps to 3.50%	4.00%	£1,056	£115,649

The illustration assumes mortgage rates move 1:1 with the Bank Rate, which is roughly accurate for trackers but overstates the move for fixes (where swap expectations dominate). The relevance for households currently rolling off sub-2% fixes is that even a full 100 bps of further cuts would still leave them paying substantially more than their maturing deal.

Market-Implied Forecast — SONIA Curve and Sell-Side Views

The clearest window on the market's expected path for the Bank Rate is the Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA) curve, published daily by the Bank of England. SONIA effectively reads off the implied future level of the Bank Rate out to around 10 years.

As of 17 April 2026, the SONIA-implied path embeds approximately one further 25 bps cut by the end of 2026, with the Bank Rate troughing at around 3.75–4.00% in 2027 before edging higher as growth normalises. This is a meaningfully shallower easing path than markets were pricing a year ago, reflecting the November 2025 surprise hike and stickier-than-expected services inflation.

Horizon	SONIA-implied Bank Rate (17 Apr 2026)	Implied change from today
End-June 2026	4.42%	-8 bps
End-December 2026	4.18%	-32 bps (~1 cut)
End-June 2027	3.94%	-56 bps (~2 cuts)
End-December 2027	3.82%	-68 bps
End-December 2028	3.78%	-72 bps

Sell-side forecasts broadly align with the curve. A Reuters poll of 41 economists (published 10 April 2026) had a median end-2026 Bank Rate of 4.25%, with a range of 3.75% to 4.50%. The hawkish tail largely reflects concerns about sustained services inflation; the dovish tail reflects a view that labour market slack will build faster than the MPC currently projects.

The SONIA curve is not a forecast in the strict sense — it is a risk-neutral expectation that also embeds a term premium and hedging flows. Historically the curve has been a better guide to the direction of rates than the level, and it can shift materially in response to single data prints, particularly CPI and average weekly earnings.

Historical Context — Bank Rate in Long-Run Perspective

The current 4.50% Bank Rate is elevated relative to the post-2008 experience but broadly in line with the pre-2008 average. The Bank of England's "A millennium of macroeconomic data" dataset shows the long-run average policy rate since 1700 is around 4.8%, making the 2009–2021 period of rates at or below 0.75% a historical anomaly rather than a new normal.

Period	Average Bank Rate	Notes
1975–1989	11.4%	High-inflation era; peak 17% Nov 1979
1990–1999	7.5%	ERM crisis, inflation targeting introduced 1992
2000–2007	4.8%	"Great Moderation"
2008–2016	0.8%	Financial crisis era; 0.5% floor from Mar 2009
2017–2019	0.6%	Gradual normalisation attempt
2020–2021	0.15%	Pandemic emergency
2022–2024	3.9%	Post-pandemic tightening; 5.25% peak
2025–2026 YTD	4.44%	Easing cycle interrupted

For context, the all-time low of 0.10% (March 2020 to December 2021) was the lowest policy rate since the Bank of England was founded in 1694. The all-time high of 17% was set in November 1979 during the second oil shock.

Implications for Remortgaging Households

The practical question for most UK homeowners is not where the Bank Rate settles in 2028, but what it means for the remortgage decision they face in the next three to six months. Three concrete implications flow from the current market setup.

1. The savings-rate gap has narrowed, but remortgaging still pays. The average borrower rolling off a fixed rate in 2026 is coming off a deal priced at 1.9–2.5% and moving to a new rate of 4.1–4.6%. On a £200,000 balance over 25 years, that represents an increase in monthly payments of roughly £220–£290. Shopping the remortgage rather than reverting to SVR saves a further £380–£440 per month at current spreads.

2. Product fee versus rate trade-off matters more at higher rates. With gross rates around 4.5%, the breakeven on a £999 product fee versus a fee-free deal at a rate 0.15% higher is approximately £222,000 of balance over a 2-year fix. Below that, fee-free wins; above it, pay the fee. A mortgage broker should run both scenarios explicitly.

3. 2-year vs 5-year fix is closer than it looks. The 2-year fix averages 4.62% and the 5-year averages 4.47% at 75% LTV as of mid-April 2026 — an inverted term structure of 15 bps. Households are effectively paying 15 bps per year to retain optionality. Given that the SONIA curve embeds only around 70 bps of further cuts over five years, locking in 5 years at 4.47% is roughly neutral against the central path.

For households currently on SVR — which averages 8.11% — the case for moving is overwhelming regardless of the MPC's next move. The annual interest saving on a £200,000 SVR balance at 8.11% versus a new 5-year fix at 4.47% is approximately £7,280 per year in the first year.

Data Sources and Methodology

All historical Bank Rate data in this tracker is taken from the Bank of England's official Bank Rate history dataset (database identifier IUDBEDR), cross-checked against the MPC Minutes and Monetary Policy Summaries for vote breakdowns. Inflation data is sourced from the Office for National Statistics Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) release; labour market data from the ONS Labour Market Statistics release (LFS and PAYE RTI); GDP data from the ONS Quarterly National Accounts.

Mortgage rate averages are from the Moneyfacts UK Mortgage Trends Treasury Report, a widely cited industry benchmark derived from the full public product range. Outstanding mortgage stock composition is sourced from the UK Finance Household Finance Review (quarterly). SONIA-implied forward rates are derived from the Bank of England's daily yield curve release, using the instantaneous forward rates and the overnight index swap curve.

Worked payment examples are calculated using the standard capital-and-interest amortisation formula, with monthly compounding and payments in arrears. They are for illustrative purposes only and do not include product fees, legal costs, valuation fees, stamp duty or any other transaction charges.

This page is updated within 24 hours of each scheduled MPC decision. Journalists wishing to cite the tracker or request underlying datasets can contact the RemortgageSaver editorial desk.