Is My Pay Rise Keeping Up With Inflation?
As of July 2026, UK CPI inflation is running at +2.8% year-on-year. If your pay hasn't grown at least that much over the last 12 months, you're likely behind in real terms.
Enter your salary at two points in time and this tool will compare your actual (nominal) pay growth against CPI inflation over the same window, and tell you whether your pay rise was a genuine increase in purchasing power or a real-terms pay cut.
How to interpret your result
A pay rise below CPI inflation still increases the number on your payslip, but it buys you less than your old salary did — you have effectively taken a pay cut once prices are accounted for. A pay rise above CPI inflation means your purchasing power has genuinely grown, not just your headline salary. The gap between your nominal change and your real-terms change is entirely down to inflation: the wider that gap, the more of your pay rise was absorbed by rising prices rather than landing in your pocket.
How this calculation works
Your starting salary is scaled up by CPI growth between your two chosen months, to work out what it would need to be today just to keep pace with inflation — that's the pound figure shown alongside your actual current salary. Your real-terms change is the percentage difference between the two. This is the same approach economists use to describe wage growth as being "above" or "below" inflation in the news.
Frequently asked questions
What does 'real terms' mean?
Real terms means adjusted for inflation. A 'nominal' pay rise is the raw percentage your salary went up by. A 'real-terms' change compares that rise to how much prices rose over the same period — if prices rose faster than your pay, your real-terms pay has fallen even though the number on your payslip went up.
Does this account for tax, National Insurance, or pension contributions?
No. This tool compares gross (pre-tax) salary figures against CPI inflation only. It's a purchasing-power comparison, not a full take-home-pay or tax calculator. Changes to tax bands, National Insurance, or pension contributions between your two dates aren't reflected in the result.
Why compare to CPI and not my own cost of living?
CPI is a broad, consistent, independently measured benchmark, which is what makes it useful for comparison. Your personal inflation rate could be higher or lower depending on your own spending — see the general calculator page for more on why that gap happens.
What if my start and end dates span a promotion or job change?
The calculator only compares two salary figures and two dates — it doesn't distinguish between a pay rise in the same role versus a change via promotion or new job. Both are valid uses; just be clear with yourself about which comparison you're making.
Data source: ONS Consumer Price Inflation time series (MM23). Latest available month: July 2026. Figures on this page were last refreshed 13 September 2026.