Key takeaways
- Average weekly earnings for May to July 2026 grew 3.9% on total pay and 3.5% on regular pay. The triple lock runs off one of those two, and DWP has not said which.
- On the full new State Pension that gap is worth 95p a week: £250.70 at 3.9% against £249.75 at 3.5%, from £241.30 now.
- CPI ran at 3.1% in the 12 months to August 2026. The September reading, due on 21 October 2026, is the one that counts, and above 3.9% it takes the decision on either reading.
- To reach 3.9% the price index would have to climb about 0.79% in a single month. The largest August-to-September move in the eleven years from 2015 was 0.57%.
- At either earnings figure the full new State Pension passes the £12,570 personal allowance in 2027 to 2028, by £417.00 at 3.5% and £466.40 at 3.9%.
The state pension increase in April 2027 rests on three numbers, and one of them is two numbers
Here is where it stands in late September 2026. The triple lock pays the highest of three things: growth in earnings, growth in prices, and 2.5%. The prices figure doesn't exist yet. September 2026 CPI isn't published until 21 October 2026. The 2.5% floor never moves. That leaves earnings, and earnings is where it gets awkward.
The ONS published average weekly earnings for May to July 2026 on 15 September 2026. Annual growth "was 3.5% for regular earnings (excluding bonuses) and 3.9% for total earnings (including bonuses)". The uprating documents name neither series. So the state pension increase in April 2027 is somewhere between 3.5% and 3.9% on earnings alone, unless September prices beat both. That's £249.75 or £250.70 a week on the full new State Pension, against £241.30 now.
What each input pays, weekly and annually
The starting rates below are the 2026 to 2027 figures from the DWP rate tables, which took effect in April 2026. Each column applies one input and rounds to the nearest 5 pence, which is what the department did last time. The chart shows the same columns for the full new State Pension on its own.
| Weekly rate | Now, 2026 to 2027 | At 2.5% | At 3.1% | At 3.5% | At 3.9% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full new State Pension | £241.30 | £247.35 | £248.80 | £249.75 | £250.70 |
| Full basic State Pension | £184.90 | £189.50 | £190.65 | £191.35 | £192.10 |
| Category B lower basic pension | £110.75 | £113.50 | £114.20 | £114.65 | £115.05 |
| Pension Credit guarantee, single | £238.00 | £243.95 | £245.40 | £246.35 | £247.30 |
| Pension Credit guarantee, couple | £363.25 | £372.35 | £374.50 | £375.95 | £377.40 |
Across a full year, the two earnings columns come to £12,987.00 and £13,036.40 on the full new State Pension, against £12,547.60 now. A 0.4 percentage point difference in the input is £49.40 a year at the end of it. That annual convention isn't ours. HMRC's guidance is that "After your first year of getting the State Pension, you'll pay tax based on 52 weeks of payments each year", and Budget 2025 priced the April 2026 rise at "up to an additional £575 a year", which is the £11.05 weekly increase across those 52 weeks.
If your own payment isn't the full rate, the same percentages still apply to it. The 2026 order raised transitional rates of the new State Pension "by the same percentage as the full rate", so a weekly amount of any size moves by whichever figure wins and is then rounded. In the 2026 rate tables that came out as 4.7991% rather than 4.8%, because the factor applied is the exact ratio between the old and new full rates. The exception is the slice of a transitional award that sits above the full rate, the protected payment, which follows prices rather than the triple lock. The two Pension Credit rows are in the table because their statutory link is also to earnings, not because the triple lock commitment names them.
The 3.1% column is there for scale rather than because August decides anything. Only the September print counts for prices. The 2.5% column matters least of all: it sits a full percentage point below the lower of the two earnings readings.
Why DWP's own paperwork doesn't settle which earnings figure applies
The explanatory memorandum to the 2026 uprating order says the Secretary of State "has discretion over how to measure changes in the general level of earnings and has decided to use growth in Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) in the year to May-July 2025, which was 4.8%". It does not say total pay or regular pay. Neither did the 2025 memorandum, which used "growth in AWE in the year to May-July 2024 (4.1%)".
Line those up against what the ONS actually published and the two years point different ways. In September 2024, May to July 2024 came out at 5.1% for regular earnings and 4.0% for total earnings. The 2025 memorandum footnotes that the figure "was adjusted upwards to 4.1% (from 4.0%) in the October statistics release", which is the total pay series. In September 2025, May to July 2025 came out at 4.8% for regular earnings and 4.7% for total earnings. The 2026 memorandum footnotes that the figure "remained at 4.8% in the October statistics release", and 4.8% is the regular pay number in that bulletin.
One reading is that the series was revised between releases and the wording is loose. The other is that the measure moved. Either way, the department publishes a percentage without naming the series behind it, and in a year when the two series are 0.4 percentage points apart that is the difference between two different State Pension rates. Both readings are in the table.
What September CPI would have to do to take over
CPI rose 3.1% in the 12 months to August 2026, up from 2.9% in July, on data released on 16 September 2026. Transport did most of the work. The average price of petrol rose 9.1 pence a litre between July and August 2026.
The annual rate is a ratio of two index levels, which makes the threshold easy to state. The CPI index stood at 143.6 in August 2026 and at 139.3 in September 2025. For the September 2026 annual rate to reach 3.9%, the index has to hit roughly 144.73, a one-month rise of about 0.79%. To reach 3.5% it needs about 144.18, a rise of about 0.40%. Between those two points, prices beat regular pay and lose to total pay, and the answer depends on the series question above.
A 0.79% month would be a large move. Across the eleven Septembers from 2015 to 2025, the biggest August-to-September rise in the CPI index was 0.57%, in 2022, when energy and food were still moving hard. In 2025 the index didn't shift between the two months at all. That's a small sample, it isn't a forecast, and August 2026 has already surprised upwards. What it gives you is the size of the move required.
The triple lock is a government commitment, not a statute
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Section 150A of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 requires the Secretary of State to "review the following amounts in order to determine whether they have retained their value in relation to the general level of earnings obtaining in Great Britain". Earnings. Not prices, and not 2.5%.
The DWP memorandum says it in a line: "The statutory minimum increase to the basic State Pension is the rise in earnings. The government has given a commitment to increase the basic State Pension in line with the Triple Lock, that is, the highest of the growth in earnings, the growth in prices, or 2.5%." Budget 2025 restated it as "a commitment to the Triple Lock for the duration of this parliament", covering "over 12 million pensioners". The sums are not small: the memorandum puts the total cost of the 2026/27 uprating changes at £11 billion.
Not every line on a pension statement gets the triple lock
In April 2026 the 4.8% earnings figure went to the basic State Pension, the full rate of the new State Pension, and the Pension Credit standard minimum guarantee. Additional State Pension, graduated retirement benefit, State Pension increments and protected payments got the price figure of 3.8% instead. Two people with identical pension totals can see different increases, because the mix behind the total differs.
The full rate isn't what most people are paid, either. The memorandum sets out the transitional rate: a starting amount based on National Insurance contributions to 5 April 2016, topped up by 1/35th of the full rate for each qualifying year gained after that. It "may, in individual cases, be more than, less than, or equal to the full rate of the new State Pension". Where a record is short of qualifying years, Class 3 voluntary National Insurance is the mechanism that fills them, and the payback period is its own calculation.
April 2027 is when the full new State Pension crosses the personal allowance
The personal allowance is £12,570, and legislation fixes it at that level for both 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028. The full new State Pension is £241.30 a week, which is £12,547.60 over a year. That leaves £22.40 of headroom.
Every input in the table closes it. At 3.5% the annual figure is £12,987.00, which is £417.00 above the allowance and £83.40 of tax at the 20% rate inside the basic rate band. At 3.9% it is £13,036.40, £466.40 above, and £93.28 of tax. Even the 2.5% floor would put it £292.20 over. So the state pension increase in April 2027 is also the point at which a full new State Pension, on its own, becomes taxable.
A deduction doesn't follow automatically. HMRC guidance is that "Your private pension provider will usually take off any tax you owe before they pay you. This includes any tax you owe on your State Pension." Where nothing else is in payment, "HMRC will send you a Simple Assessment tax bill". Where a private pot is being drawn alongside it, the two interact through the tax code, and filling the basic rate band is where that sits in a wider withdrawal plan.
The strongest objection to treating any of this as settled
Revisions come first, and the memorandums prove the point themselves. The May to July 2024 figure moved from 4.0% to 4.1% between the September and October releases. Total pay for the three months to July 2025 now prints 4.9%, against the 4.8% the 2026 order was built on. The next earnings release is 20 October 2026, and it covers the period that decides April 2027.
Forecasts come second, and they have not held up. The OBR's March 2026 outlook had CPI falling "from 3.4 per cent in 2025 to 2.3 per cent in 2026" and settling at "2.0 per cent from 2027 onwards". August 2026 printed 3.1%, and up on the month. There is no official triple lock forecast for 2027, and a six-month-old projection is not a September print.
Third, rounding is discretionary. Section 150 lets the Secretary of State "adjust the amount of the increase so as to round any sum up or down to such extent as he thinks appropriate". In 2026 "the majority of new rates are rounded to the nearest 5 pence", which is why the table reads £250.70 rather than a fraction of a penny more.
Fourth, the decision is announced, not triggered. In 2025 the Secretary of State announced the uprating "to Parliament in a Written Ministerial Statement on 26 November 2025". The commitment runs for the duration of this parliament, and a policy position is something a government can revisit.
What these numbers don't cover
The columns are not a forecast, and the 3.1% one is illustrative only, because August CPI has no role in the decision. The reading of the two memorandums above is a reading, not a departmental statement, and the department may name the series when it publishes the 2027 order. The earnings measures are three-month averages for Great Britain rather than the whole UK, and both exclude arrears. One month of price data decides the prices leg, and a single fuel move can swing it, as the 9.1 pence a litre in August showed. The month-on-month comparison rests on a sample of eleven Septembers, which says nothing definitive about the next one. Above all, the table assumes the full rate, and most people are paid a transitional rate of their own. Anyone working out how much they need to retire in the UK is starting from their own State Pension forecast, not from the headline.
What would change this
Three dated events decide the state pension increase in April 2027, in that order. The ONS earnings release on 20 October 2026 can revise May to July 2026 away from 3.9% and 3.5%, and both of the last two May to July readings were revised after first publication. September 2026 CPI is the last pension increase input outstanding, and it lands on 21 October 2026. Then the uprating order, laid in draft before Parliament, is what turns a percentage into a rate.
The number worth watching is the index level rather than the headline rate. Around 144.73 on the September 2026 CPI index is where prices match the higher of the two earnings readings. Below about 144.18 they beat neither, and the triple lock decision for 2027 is an earnings decision worth either £249.75 or £250.70 a week. In between, which of those two it is stops being an accounting question and becomes the whole answer.