Bank of England Base Rate History and Mortgage Pricing Path, 1975 to 2025
Every Bank of England base rate decision from 1975 through 2025-12-18, with the implied transmission to UK mortgage pricing.
Research period:
Research question
How has the Bank of England base rate moved since 1975, and what does each move imply for mortgage pricing?
Methodology
This ranking is generated fresh from the current Bank of England dataset every time the page loads, not a fixed figure typed in once and forgotten. When Bank of England publishes an update, our next data refresh picks it up automatically.
Rate changes with no data reported are left out rather than shown as a false zero, since Bank of England occasionally withholds a figure for data-quality reasons.
Every number on this page traces back to a specific Bank of England record, so you can verify it yourself against the original source. See the methodology page for the full data pipeline and how often we refresh.
Bank of England Base Rate History and Mortgage Pricing Path, 1975 to 2025
Live data through 2025-12-18
Base-rate change direction frequency in the last 20 MPC decisions
Live counts of rises / cuts / holds across the most recent Monetary Policy Committee decisions
The ranked top 20
Every row below reflects the current Bank of England dataset and updates automatically the next time we refresh it.
| # | Effective date | Base rate % | Move | MPC context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2025-12-18 | 3.8% | cut | |
| 2 | 2025-08-07 | 4.0% | cut | |
| 3 | 2025-05-08 | 4.3% | cut | |
| 4 | 2025-02-06 | 4.5% | cut | |
| 5 | 2024-11-07 | 4.8% | cut | |
| 6 | 2024-08-01 | 5.0% | cut | First cut of the current easing cycle. |
| 7 | 2023-08-03 | 5.3% | hike | Peak of the post-pandemic tightening cycle. |
| 8 | 2023-06-22 | 5.0% | hike | |
| 9 | 2023-05-11 | 4.5% | hike | |
| 10 | 2023-03-23 | 4.3% | hike | |
| 11 | 2023-02-02 | 4.0% | hike | |
| 12 | 2022-12-15 | 3.5% | hike | |
| 13 | 2022-11-03 | 3.0% | hike | |
| 14 | 2022-09-22 | 2.3% | hike | |
| 15 | 2022-08-04 | 1.8% | hike | |
| 16 | 2022-06-16 | 1.3% | hike | |
| 17 | 2022-05-05 | 1.0% | hike | |
| 18 | 2022-03-17 | 0.8% | hike | |
| 19 | 2022-02-03 | 0.5% | hike | |
| 20 | 2021-12-16 | 0.3% | hike | First rise of the post-pandemic tightening cycle. |
Source: Bank of England, Bank Rate History. Values are current as of our most recent Bank of England data refresh.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is 2025-12-18, with a value of 3.8% on the Base rate % column. The full top-20 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the Bank of England publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (3.8%) and the 20th-ranked record (0.3%) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-20 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from Bank of England, specifically the Bank Rate History. PlainMortgage ingests each new release from Bank of England and republishes the figures here automatically, so this page always reflects the current dataset rather than a fixed snapshot. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the transformation steps applied during ETL.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
The transmission from base rate to retail mortgage rates is not instantaneous nor mechanical. Tracker products reprice within days. Standard variable rates follow within weeks. Fixed-rate products reprice as lender swap-rate funding costs adjust, typically over weeks to months, and new offers may diverge from headline expectations if banks are competing for volume or rebuilding margins. Historical entries before 1997 reflect Bank of England decisions made in coordination with HM Treasury; post-1997 decisions are made independently by the Monetary Policy Committee.
Sources
- Bank of England Bank Rate database - https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/the-interest-rate-bank-rate
- Monetary Policy Committee statements - https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy
"Source-of-truth UK mortgage rate data lives in the Bank of England's quoted household interest rates; UK house price data lives in HM Land Registry UKHPI. Both publish monthly under Open Government Licence v3."