Key takeaways
- Bank Rate has been 3.75% since 18 December 2025, yet the average one-year fixed bond went from 3.67% in January 2026 to 4.35% in September 2026.
- Easy access moved the other way over those same months, 2.15% down to 2.06%. On £20,000 that is £412 a year against £870 in the one-year bond, a gap of £458.
- A higher-rate taxpayer pays £148 of tax on that £870, because the personal savings allowance shelters £500 of it in the 2026 to 2027 tax year. £722 is left.
- Against the Bank's 3¾% projection for Q4 2026 inflation, £20,000 earning 2.06% loses £325.78 of purchasing power over a year.
- The average instant-access rate captured 51.1% of the 2021 to 2023 Bank Rate rise, so a 0.25 point rise is worth about £25.55 a year on £20,000, not £50.
Bank Rate hasn't moved since 18 December 2025. It was still 3.75% on 15 October 2026, and the Monetary Policy Committee's next decision lands on 5 November 2026. So the useful answer to "will savings rates go up" is that part of the move already happened, and it happened while the Bank sat still. The average one-year fixed-rate bond paid 3.67% in January 2026 and 4.35% in September 2026. Over those same months the average instant-access rate fell, from 2.15% to 2.06%. On £20,000 that is £870 a year in one account and £412 in the other.
Will savings rates go up, or has the rise already happened somewhere you aren't looking?
Both things are true at once, which is why the question is so hard to answer in a single number. The Bank of England publishes an average quoted rate for each kind of household savings account, month by month. Line up the five series for 2026 and the split is obvious.
From January 2026 to September 2026, with Bank Rate pinned at 3.75% the whole way, the average two-year fixed bond rose 0.85 points to 4.50%. The one-year bond rose 0.68 points to 4.35%. Instant access fell 0.09 points to 2.06%. Strip out introductory bonuses, which expire, and the instant-access average fell 0.12 points to 1.90%.
That is one savings market behaving like two. The fixed-bond averages moved with short-term market rates. The September 2026 minutes record UK financial conditions tightening further since the July Report, driven by increases in short-term overnight index swap rates, which price where the overnight rate is expected to average over a given term. Instant access is a rate the bank sets at its own discretion, and nothing in the published record forces it to follow.
What £5,000, £20,000 and £50,000 earn a year at September 2026 average rates
Simple interest over twelve months, before tax, at the Bank of England's September 2026 average quoted rates. No compounding, no bonus expiry part-way through, no withdrawal.
| Balance | Instant access 2.06% | Instant access, no bonus 1.90% | One-year bond 4.35% | Two-year bond 4.50% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £5,000 | £103 | £95 | £217.50 | £225 |
| £20,000 | £412 | £380 | £870 | £900 |
| £50,000 | £1,030 | £950 | £2,175 | £2,250 |
The column that tends to surprise people is the second one. The headline instant-access average of 2.06% includes unconditional introductory bonuses. The same series without them reads 1.90%. On £20,000 that difference is £32 a year, and it arrives as a cut on whatever date the bonus runs out.
A balance held at Bank Rate itself would earn £750 on £20,000. The instant-access average pays £412 of that. The one-year bond pays £870, which is more than Bank Rate pays. The short-term interest rate curve described in the September 2026 minutes is upward sloping and peaks at around 4.9% by end-2027, so a year of locked money is priced above today's 3.75% rather than at it.
Easy access savings rates fell in 2026 while Bank Rate stood still
This is the part worth understanding, because it decides what a November vote is actually worth to you. Two completed cycles are on the record.
In the hiking cycle, Bank Rate went from 0.10% in November 2021 to 5.25% in September 2023, a rise of 5.15 points. The average instant-access rate went from 0.11% to 2.74% over the same window, a rise of 2.63 points. That is 51.1% of the move. The one-year bond went from 0.28% to 5.41%, which is 99.6% of it.
In the cutting cycle, Bank Rate fell 1.50 points between July 2024 and January 2026. Instant access fell 0.64 points, or 42.7% of it. So the asymmetry that savers complain about is real but modest in these two samples: banks passed a little over half of the rises and a little under half of the cuts.
The September 2026 minutes put the contrast plainly on the lending side. They record "full and fast pass-through from increases in short-term OIS rates to key lending rates", with the quoted two-year fixed mortgage rate around 95 basis points higher than before the Middle East conflict began. Easy access savings rates carry no such mechanism. The effective rate on the outstanding stock of household sight deposits was 1.65% in August 2026, and it had been 1.65% in July too.
Households appear to have noticed. In August 2026 they put £4.4 billion into ISAs and pulled £1.6 billion out of interest-bearing sight accounts. If you are weighing up where to keep an emergency fund, that flow is the same trade-off showing up in aggregate.
Tax takes £148 of the £870 if you pay the higher rate
Interest outside an ISA is taxed as income. The personal savings allowance for the 2026 to 2027 tax year is £1,000 for a basic-rate taxpayer, £500 at the higher rate and nothing at the additional rate. Above the allowance the interest is taxed at your band: 20%, 40% or 45%.
| Balance at 4.35% | Gross interest | After basic-rate tax | After higher-rate tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| £5,000 | £217.50 | £217.50 | £217.50 |
| £20,000 | £870 | £870 | £722 |
| £50,000 | £2,175 | £1,940 | £1,505 |
At £20,000 a basic-rate taxpayer keeps the lot, because £870 sits inside the £1,000 allowance. A higher-rate taxpayer is £370 over the £500 allowance and pays £148, leaving £722. At £50,000 the basic-rate bill is £235 and the higher-rate bill is £670. The same £50,000 in instant access at 2.06% leaves a higher-rate taxpayer with £818.
Two things change that arithmetic. In the 2026 to 2027 tax year the starting rate for savings gives up to £5,000 of tax-free interest to people whose other taxable income is under £17,570, tapering away pound for pound above the personal allowance. And your band is worked out with the interest included: GOV.UK says to add all the interest you have earned to your other income, so interest itself can carry you past the £50,270 higher-rate threshold for 2026 to 2027 and into the higher rate, where the tax on savings interest doubles.
At 3¾% inflation £20,000 in instant access loses £325.78 a year
Nominal interest is not the number that decides anything. CPI inflation was 3.1% in the 12 months to August 2026, and the Bank's September projection has it rising to around 3¾% in 2026 Q4 and slightly above 4% in 2027 Q1. Measured against 3.75%, here is what a year does to £20,000.
- Instant access at 2.06%: a real return of -1.63 points, or -£325.78 of purchasing power.
- Instant access without the bonus, 1.90%: -£356.63.
- One-year bond at 4.35%: +0.58 points, or +£115.66.
- One-year bond at 4.35% after higher-rate tax, a net 3.61%: -£26.99.
So the best average fixed rate in the published series roughly holds its value before tax, and loses slightly after it for a higher-rate taxpayer. The instant-access average does not come close. The gap between 2.06% and 4.35% is 2.29 points, which on £20,000 is £458 a year, and it dwarfs anything a single vote does.
What a 0.25 point rise on 5 November would add to your balance
Three members of the MPC voted to raise Bank Rate to 4% in September 2026. Suppose they win on 5 November. Here is the extra annual interest, first if a savings account passes the whole thing on, then at the 51.1% share instant access actually got in the last hiking cycle.
| Balance | Full pass-through, +0.25 points | At 51.1% pass-through, +0.13 points |
|---|---|---|
| £5,000 | £12.50 | £6.39 |
| £20,000 | £50 | £25.55 |
| £50,000 | £125 | £63.88 |
Set £25.55 beside the £325.78 of purchasing power the same £20,000 loses to inflation, and the vote stops looking like the main event. The £458 gap between instant access and the one-year bond is 17.9 times what a passed-on quarter point adds. That is the honest shape of the answer to "will savings rates go up in 2026" for anyone sitting in instant access.
The strongest case against expecting any rise at all
Six of the nine committee members disagreed with the three who wanted 4% in September 2026, and the hold carried. Two further pieces of evidence point the same way.
The September Market Participants Survey closed on 4 September 2026. Nearly all respondents expected no change at that meeting, and the minutes record that median expectations beyond it "implied a prolonged period of unchanged Bank Rate". The market curve says something different, peaking at around 4.9% by end-2027, but the Committee's own reading is that the upward slope beyond the near term "was accounted for to a greater extent by risk premia". A curve pushed up by compensation for uncertainty is not a forecast of higher rates, and reading it as one overstates what the curve says.
The case the other way is narrower than the headlines suggest. Andrew Bailey's September statement was conditional: if the Middle East conflict persists and the risk of second-round effects grows, "it is likely that policy may have to tighten". Nothing in the published record states that it has to.
What the quoted rate series cannot tell you about your own account
These are averages of advertised products, not of the money sitting in them, and that is the main limitation of the whole exercise. The Bank's effective-rate series shows the difference: new household time deposits earned 4.24% in August 2026, while the outstanding stock of time deposits earned 3.41% and sight deposits earned 1.65%. Old money earns old rates.
Two more caveats. The pass-through figures above rest on two cycles, which is a sample of two, and the 2021 to 2023 episode took Bank Rate up 5.15 points inside 22 months. And an average quoted rate includes accounts nobody would choose alongside accounts that clear it comfortably, so your own rate can sit well above or below 2.06% without the average being wrong.
On safety, the FSCS covers deposits up to £120,000 per eligible person per authorised firm, a limit that rose from its previous level on 1 December 2025. Firms sharing a banking licence count as one firm for that purpose. A balance over the limit at a single licence is not covered beyond it, whatever the rate. If a chunk of this money is destined for an ISA wrapper instead, the cash ISA limit changes the sums again.
What would change these numbers
Three dated things, in order of how far they move the arithmetic. The MPC decides on 5 November 2026, and on the 2021 to 2023 record a rise reached the one-year bond rate almost in full, at 99.6%, and instant access at 51.1%. The Bank's next effective interest rates release lands on 29 October 2026, which is the first check on whether the sight-deposit rate has moved off 1.65%. And the Q4 2026 CPI prints decide whether the 3¾% projection was right, which is what sets the real return on every row above.
The thing to watch isn't the vote. It's whether the instant-access series starts tracking the one-year bond series again, because for most of 2026 it hasn't. Whether savings rates go up in 2027 depends far more on that reconnection than on any single meeting, and nothing in the published data settles it yet.