The UK’s brief reprieve from climbing prices appears to be over. The Office for National Statistics is set to publish May 2026 Consumer Price Index data on June 17, and the consensus view among economists is that inflation is heading back up, with forecasts clustering around 3.0% year-over-year.
That would mark a meaningful reversal from April’s 2.8% reading, which itself was a welcome decline from 3.3% in March. The timing could hardly be more consequential: the data drops just one day before the Bank of England’s monetary policy meeting and interest rate decision.
What’s pushing prices higher
Ongoing tensions in the Middle East, particularly the US-Israel conflict with Iran, have been pushing global fuel and energy costs upward. That pressure is now filtering through to UK consumer prices in a way that reverses the temporary moderation seen in April.
The energy price cap and favorable base effects from a year prior helped pull the April headline number down. Those tailwinds have faded.
