RPI inflation, 1949 to July 2026

£1,000 in 1949 is £51,677 today

That £1,000 bought 5,556 dozen eggs in 1949. Today it buys 421.

Prices up 5,068%5.2% a year on averageMultiply by 51.68

Measured with the Retail Prices Index, the only official series that runs back to 1948. Use CPI instead.

It takes 51.7 of today's pounds to match one from 1949

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What £1,000 buys

Official average shop prices, not a basket. Things marked as outrunning inflation got dearer faster than everything else; things that lagged got relatively cheaper.

Item	1949	Today
dozen eggslagged inflation18p then, about £2.38 today	5,556	421
pints of milklagged inflation2p then, about 70p today	47,619	1,439
Same money, adjusted for inflation	£1,000	£51,677

The ONS stopped publishing these average prices in January 2025. Today's figures are that last reading moved on with inflation, so treat them as close rather than exact.