How to read this Bank of England rate screen
Interpreting the table and chart
Table rows correspond to scheduled Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decision dates over the next year.
- Implied post-meeting rate is the market-implied level of the BOE's policy rate (Bank Rate) after each meeting.
- Probability of hike/cut displays an approximate probability of a discrete Bank Rate move at each meeting (step size defaults to 25bps moves but can be changed in the drop-down menu).
- # of hikes/cuts shows the cumulative number of hikes/cuts expected between now and each meeting (also dependent on the step size selected).
- Δ vs current (bps) shows the cumulative change in the Bank Rate priced-in between now and each meeting in basis points (+12.5bps = +0.125%).
The chart plots the implied post-meeting rate across all upcoming meetings. An upward-sloping line indicates that markets are pricing tightening over time; a flat line suggests an extended pause; a downward-sloping line indicates expected cuts. Use the screen to see what is currently priced in and to compare today’s expectations with those from previous weeks or months.
What this page measures
What's priced in for the Bank of England's next MPC meeting?
The table and chart reflect market pricing, not a forecast. When the site refers to “probabilities,” it is describing the likelihood implied by tradable instruments that reference future policy settings. In other words, it is a snapshot of consensus pricing that may be wrong and will often move as new information arrives.
The page focuses on scheduled meetings, but policy decisions can sometimes occur outside regular meetings under extraordinary circumstances. Market pricing may also reflect expectations about communication, guidance, and financial conditions even when the headline policy rate is unchanged.
What “probabilities” mean (and what they don’t)
The probabilities on this site are market-implied. They describe what is priced, not what will happen. Markets can overreact, underreact, or price scenarios that never occur. The goal is to translate market pricing into a clean, intuitive summary of expectations using a consistent step size.
Step size matters because markets may be pricing smaller adjustments, larger moves, or a mix of outcomes across meetings. The probability fields are therefore best read as approximations that help summarize pricing, rather than precise forecasts.
Meeting liveness gauge
In rates-market shorthand, a meeting is "live" when a policy move there is a realistic possibility, even if it isn't the most likely outcome. The liveness gauge applies this to the next scheduled meeting: it reads LIVE once the probability of a hike or cut (at your selected step size) reaches 25%, and DEAD below that.
There's no official threshold for "live." We use 25%, a one-in-four chance (6.25bps priced at the default 25bps step), because that is where a move stops being a long shot: by 25%, widely used probability-language scales, such as the IPCC's and those used by US and UK intelligence analysts, no longer describe an outcome as "very" or "highly" unlikely. It is still a judgment call, which is why the exact probability is always shown in the gauge's tooltip and elsewhere.
STRENGTH uses an asymmetric scale to show how firmly the meeting sits on its side of that line: STRONG under 10%, MODERATE 10–20% and WEAK 20–25% on the dead side; WEAK 25–40%, MODERATE 40–70% and STRONG 70% and above on the live side. The tooltip's Conviction score is a separate, outcome-neutral measure (the same one used on the comparison page): it is lowest at a 50/50 split and highest when pricing is near 0% or 100%.
Like every probability on this site, the gauge reflects market pricing, not a forecast. See the methodology page for the full method, the reasoning behind each cutoff, and its limitations.
Methodology summary
At a high level, the site uses interest-rate market instruments that reference future policy settings to infer an expected policy-rate path meeting-by-meeting. Those implied levels are translated into an implied post-meeting path and a cumulative change versus current, along with approximate probabilities of discrete moves based on the selected step size.
Data is updated daily. If the most recent fetch is temporarily unavailable, the page may display the most recent cached values.
Note: These probabilities are derived from OIS (overnight index swap) markets, not SONIA futures contracts. These instruments are closely related and often move together, but this site's calculations are OIS-based throughout.
Who this is for
This tool is useful for anyone who wants a fast, market-based read on UK monetary-policy expectations. It is commonly used by macro and rates-focused investors, traders, and researchers, as well as professionals who monitor Bank Rate expectations as an input into decision-making.
Typical use cases include tracking how expectations change around major data releases and MPC communication, monitoring how pricing evolves between meetings, and forming scenarios for how the expected policy path may affect assets such as gilts, GBP FX, equities, and credit.
About the Bank of England
The Bank of England is the United Kingdom’s central bank. Its primary objective is to promote and maintain monetary and financial stability. The Bank's price stability target (set by the UK government) is 2% inflation per year over the medium term, measured with the UK CPI. To pursue that objective, it sets Bank Rate and uses other tools as needed, including balance sheet operations and communications.
Bank Rate is transmitted to short-term market rates primarily through the remuneration of reserves: the Bank pays Bank Rate in full on the reserves balances that commercial banks, building societies, and broker-dealers hold with it, which anchors overnight market rates close to Bank Rate without relying on a corridor of penalty rates. As a secondary, on-demand backstop for firms managing short-term liquidity needs between the Bank's regular market-wide operations, the Operational Standing Facility (OSF) offers an overnight lending facility, currently priced at Bank Rate plus 15 basis points against high-quality collateral, and an overnight deposit facility, currently priced at Bank Rate minus 15 basis points. Together, these tools keep the actual traded overnight rate —tracked by the SONIA benchmark— close to Bank Rate.
Interest-rate decisions are made by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), whose nine members —the Governor, three Deputy Governors, the Bank's Chief Economist, and four external members appointed by the Chancellor— meet eight times a year, roughly every six weeks. At each decision point the Committee may leave Bank Rate unchanged ("hold"), raise it ("hike"), or lower it ("cut"). Dissents are common in MPC votes and the vote split is often scrutinized by markets.
