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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 2.3% between 2023/24 and 2025/26.

As a member of NATO, the UK is committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence expenditure that meets NATO’s definition. The latest NATO estimates show that the UK spent 2.3% of GDP on defence in 2024.

How has defence spending changed recently?

Real-terms defence spending fell by 22% between 2009/10 and 2016/17 (from £57.1 billion to £44.6 billion in 2023/24 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.

Column chart showing UK defence spending between 2009/10 and 2023/24 in real terms at 2023/24 prices. Spending fell between 2009/10 and 2016/17 from £57.1 billion to £44.6 billion, before increasing in recent years to £53.9 billion in 2023/24.

Source: MOD, Defence departmental resources: 2024; HM Treasury, GDP deflator, October 2024 (Autumn Budget 2024)

Commitments to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP

As a member of NATO, the UK is committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence each year. It is one of 23 out of 32 NATO member countries estimated to have met this target in 2024.

The 2024 Labour manifesto pledged that a Labour Government “will set out the path to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence”. 

This was confirmed by Keir Starmer shortly after his appointment as Prime Minister, although the government has not committed to a specific timeframe for when this will be achieved. Instead, it has said this will be determined by the Government’s Strategic Defence Review, which is currently underway and expected to report in the first half of 2025, with plans set out at a “future fiscal event”.

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

Chart showing the change in the defence spending of NATO countries as a percentage of GDP between 2014 and 2024. All NATO countries have increased their spending according to this measure since 2014, except for Croatia and the US, although the US continues to exceed the 2% target, having spent an estimated 3.4% of GDP on defence in 2024.

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

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