UK inflation has hit its lowest point in nearly a year, and the Bank of England is quietly warming up the rate-cutting machinery. Here’s what the latest figures mean for your money.

January’s CPI reading came in at 3.0% — down from 3.4% in December and the lowest since March 2025, per the Office for National Statistics. Cheaper petrol, falling airfares, and softer food prices all did the heavy lifting. And with the labour market cooling too, a March rate cut is looking increasingly likely.

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The UK jobs market just flashed another amber light. Unemployment climbed to 5.2% between October and December — the highest rate since early 2021 — according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The UK housing market just felt the brakes, but don’t panic. After the biggest January price jump in Rightmove’s 25-year history, February asking prices fell by a grand total of… £12.

UK employers are quietly clearing the decks. With the Employment Rights Act set to shake up dismissal rules from January 2027, businesses are expected to front-load redundancies before the year is out — and the clock is ticking.

Lloyds Banking Group has sold off its Luxembourg-based life insurance arm, Scottish Widows Europe, to FTSE 250 pensions consolidator Chesnara for €110m (£96m). The deal adds around €1.7bn in assets under administration and roughly 46,000 active policies to Chesnara’s growing book — and marks the acquirer’s first foothold in Luxembourg. Fresh off a bumper profit for the 2025 financial year, Lloyds is clearly in housekeeping mode.

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Keir Starmer told the country the UK needs to “go faster” on defence spending  and investors wasted no time. On Monday, defence stocks on the FTSE 100 shot up as speculation grew that the government could accelerate its spending timeline by half a decade. BAE Systems, Babcock, Melrose, and Rolls-Royce all jumped. But while the market cheered, economists started doing some awkward sums. The numbers, it turns out, don’t make for comfortable reading.

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Crypto regulation just got a presidential nudge. Donald Trump has confirmed that a full crypto market structure bill is close to passing, and if you’ve been watching the SEC and CFTC bicker over digital assets for the past few years, you’ll know why that’s a big deal.

The bill would formally split oversight between the two regulators, give exchanges a fast-track path to registration, and potentially unlock assets that have been sitting under legal cloud cover. So, what’s actually in it — and what happens next?

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