Brighton Claimant Count 8,575 in July, Up 260 in a Year

8,575 people in Brighton and Hove were claiming out-of-work benefits in July, 260 more than a year earlier. The figure is 4.2 per cent of residents aged 16 to 64. That is the newest local jobs number from the Office for National Statistics, published on 18 August and available for local areas through nomis.

The city-wide movement is small. Underneath it, one age group is doing almost all of the work.

Claimants aged 16 to 24 rose from 1,335 to 1,495 over the year. That is an increase of 160, and the whole city rose by 260. Young people are under a fifth of the claimant total and made up nearly two thirds of the annual rise (nomis, by age band).

The year in numbers

• July 2026: 8,575 claimants, 4.2% of residents aged 16 to 64
• July 2025: 8,315 claimants, 4.1%
• Change over the year: up 260, or 3.1 per cent
• Change on June 2026, when the count was 8,515: up 60

The recent high point was March 2026, at 8,875 claimants and 4.4 per cent. The count then fell for three months before turning up again in July. Across the past two years the monthly count has stayed inside a fairly narrow band, between a low of 8,225 in September 2025 and that March high of 8,875 (nomis, 25-month series). A summer rise is normal in a city with this many students and this much seasonal work. These figures are not seasonally adjusted. The shape of the year matters more than any single month.

Where the rise sits, by age

In percentage terms the under-25 group grew by 12 per cent while the two older groups grew by about 1.4 per cent each.

Ward by ward

The city figure hides a gap of nearly three to one between wards. Ward figures are published for the latest month only, so these are a July 2026 snapshot rather than a trend.

The five highest rates:

The five lowest:

Rate and headcount are different things. Moulsecoomb and Bevendean has the largest number of claimants of any ward, 610, on a rate of 4.7 per cent. It has more working-age residents than the small central wards above it in the table. Hanover and Elm Grove has 555 claimants on 4.4 per cent. Hangleton and Knoll has 425 on 4.4 per cent. Ward figures are rounded to the nearest five, so they do not add exactly to the city total (nomis, Brighton & Hove wards).

How Brighton compares

Brighton and Hove sits well above the regional figure and above the UK one. All of these come from the same nomis release, so they are directly comparable (South East and UK).

• Brighton and Hove: 4.2%
• South East: 3.1% (185,120 claimants)
• United Kingdom: 3.9% (1,690,970 claimants)

One caveat on that UK figure, because it is a trap. The headline number in the ONS labour market bulletin is seasonally adjusted. It comes out at 1.665 million for July 2026, and the ONS says that fell on the month and on the year (Labour market overview, UK: August 2026). The local figures on this page are not seasonally adjusted, so we use the unadjusted nomis series for every comparison here and never mix the two.

Only seven of the 64 South East local authorities have a higher rate than Brighton and Hove: Slough at 6.0 per cent, Thanet 5.4, Hastings 5.0, Eastbourne 4.9, Crawley 4.5, Portsmouth 4.4 and Reading 4.3. Three more match it at 4.2 per cent, in Medway, Southampton and Gravesham (nomis, South East authorities).

The immediate neighbours are all lower. Lewes district is on 3.5 per cent, Worthing 3.3, Adur 3.2 and Mid Sussex 2.0. That pattern is normal for a city surrounded by smaller districts, and it is one reason city-level comparisons with rural neighbours are of limited use.

What this number is, and what it is not

The claimant count is not the unemployment rate, and the ONS is direct about that. It counts people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance plus people claiming Universal Credit who are in the “searching for work” group, which means they are required to look for work and be available for it.

The ONS notes that the measure “does not attempt to measure unemployment”, because eligibility rules leave some jobseekers out and include some people who are working limited hours. It remains useful for comparing places and tracking short-term change, because those eligibility effects are broadly consistent across areas (ONS, Claimant Count methodology). The series is also classed as experimental (nomis source notes).

Two further cautions worth carrying. All counts are rounded to the nearest five. And the proportions are calculated against resident population estimates for ages 16 to 64, a denominator that is harder to pin down in a city with two large universities.

What it means for you

• If you are looking for work in Brighton, the numbers say competition among under-25s has tightened noticeably over the past year, while the picture for people over 25 is close to flat.
• If you are claiming, the figures change nothing about your own claim. They are an aggregate count, drawn from Department for Work and Pensions administrative records.
• If you are on a low income, Council Tax Reduction is separate from the benefits counted here and is applied for through the council. Our guide to Brighton council tax bands sets out what each band costs this year before any reduction.
• If you want to check the figures yourself, every link in this article goes to the live data, not to a summary. Change the date parameter and you get a different month.

The next labour market release is due on 15 September 2026 and will carry the August figures.

Sources

• ONS claimant count for Brighton & Hove, July 2025 and July 2026, via nomis
• ONS claimant count by age band, Brighton & Hove
• ONS claimant count by ward, Brighton & Hove, July 2026
• ONS claimant count, South East local authorities, July 2026
• ONS, Claimant Count methodology
• nomis, claimant count source notes