The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted 6-3 on 30 July 2026 to hold the Bank Rate at 3.75% for a fifth consecutive meeting, resisting calls from three of its nine members to raise borrowing costs to 4%. The dissenters cited renewed conflict in the Middle East and the upward pressure it is putting on oil prices.
The decision leaves the base rate unchanged going into the Committee's next scheduled announcement on Thursday 17 September 2026. For savers, that means the current run of competitive easy-access and fixed-term rates is likely to hold a little longer; for mortgage borrowers, lenders are already repricing in anticipation of what comes next.
A Split Committee
Six members backed holding the rate steady, while Chief Economist Huw Pill, together with Catherine Mann and Megan Greene, voted for an immediate rise to 4%. It was a narrower margin than the 7-2 split most economists polled ahead of the meeting had expected, according to Reuters.
Governor Andrew Bailey said holding the rate was "appropriate as global conditions look to be more uncertain and inflationary, while domestic conditions are on balance more benign as regards the prospects for inflation." Annual consumer price inflation had eased to 2.6% by the time of the decision, still above the Bank's 2% target, with the Committee expecting it to tick back up later in the year as higher energy costs work through household bills.
Savings Rates Still Near Multi-Year Highs
The hold is good news for anyone shopping around for a savings account. According to Moneyfacts, the market-leading easy-access rate this week is 5.00% AER, offered by LemFi's Instant Access Savings Account, held via ClearBank and opened with as little as £1. That figure includes a 1.96% six-month bonus, though, so the rate drops to 3.04% once the bonus period ends — savers relying on it need to diarise the date and be ready to switch.
Notice accounts remain a reasonable middle ground. United Trust Bank's 60 Day Notice account currently pays 4.20% AER on deposits of £5,000 or more, with no access to the funds until the notice period runs out. All variable savings rates track the base rate directly, so this week's hold means no immediate change either way for existing accounts. Under HM Revenue & Customs rules, basic-rate taxpayers can still earn £1,000 in savings interest a year tax-free through the Personal Savings Allowance, a threshold that drops to £500 for higher-rate taxpayers and disappears entirely for additional-rate taxpayers. With the top easy-access and notice rates now sitting well above 4%, more savers than in previous years are likely to breach that allowance without realising it.
Mortgage Lenders Move in Different Directions
Fixed-rate mortgage pricing has been less settled than the base rate itself. Barclays cut a range of purchase and remortgage products from 7 August, taking its two-year fixed rate to 4.83% and its five-year fixed rate on 60% loan-to-value deals, with no product fee, to 4.67%. Its 90% loan-to-value five-year fixed rate came down to 4.95%.
Other lenders went the opposite way in the same week. Nationwide trimmed selected first-time buyer and remortgage rates on 3 August, while Halifax Intermediaries applied a mix of increases and decreases across its range two days later — a sign that lenders are still pricing in different expectations for where the base rate lands by early 2027.
What the Hold Means Before September
Housing market analysts at Savills note that some forecasters, including Oxford Economics, now expect the Bank to hold the rate at its current level well into 2027, rather than resuming cuts this year. Financial markets, by contrast, have at times priced in a possibility of further rate rises if the situation in the Middle East continues to push up energy costs.
Whichever way the Committee leans on 17 September, the tightest margin so far this cycle — a single vote separating a hold from a hike — suggests the next decision is unlikely to be a formality.