UK defence spending

How much does the UK spend on defence?

In the 2023/24 financial year, the UK spent £53.9 billion on defence.

Spending plans set out in the 2024 Autumn Budget show that defence spending is expected to total £56.9 billion in 2024/25, increasing to £59.8 billion in 2025/26. This is equivalent to an annual average real-terms growth rate of 2.4% between 2023/24 and 2025/26.

In the Spring Statement 2025, the government announced a £2.2 billion uplift to the Ministry of Defence budget for 2025/26. This is part of the commitment to increase NATO-qualifying defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.

How has defence spending changed recently?

Real-terms defence spending fell by 22% between 2009/10 and 2016/17 (from £59.1 billion to £46.2 billion in 2024/25 prices), before starting to increase again to nearer its 2010 levels.

Real-terms spending has increased each year since 2016/17, with the exception of 2023/24, and is expected to continue to do so. However, the fall in expenditure in the most recent year is likely to be an artefact of technical adjustments to the 2022/23 budget to finance the implementation of the new accounting standard, IFRS 16, rather than a decrease in available resource.

Historical defence spending

When looking at longer term trends, defence spending as a percentage of GDP had been falling for decades before stabilising in recent years, whereas real terms spending has fluctuated. This reflects GDP growing by more than defence spending.

Defence spending increased up to the mid-1980s, which reflected the UK’s contribution to NATO’s commitments in the Cold War. In real terms, this measure of MOD expenditure peaked in 1984/85 at £57.2 billion (in 2024/25 prices), which was the highest level of expenditure for the period.

This was followed by a fall in expenditure towards the end of the Cold War, although the Gulf War in 1991 caused a temporary rise.

Commitments to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP

When defence spending targets are discussed as a percentage of GDP, this usually relates to spending that meets the NATO definition of defence expenditure, rather than total departmental expenditure by the MOD. The NATO definition is a broader measure of defence spending than MOD expenditure, meaning the NATO figure is higher than the departmental spending plans.

As a member of NATO, the UK is committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence expenditure that meets NATO’s definition each year. It is one of 23 out of 32 NATO member countries estimated to have met this target in 2024. The latest NATO estimates show that the UK spent 2.3% of GDP on defence in 2024.

In February 2025, the Labour government committed to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2027 and indicated plans to further increase spending to 3% in the next Parliament.

The previous Conservative government had committed to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030.

Source: NATO, Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2024)