Mortgage rates in the UK have climbed to their highest level in three years, with the average five-year fixed deal now standing at 6% for the first time since September 2023, according to new figures that paint a grim picture for homeowners and prospective buyers alike.

Financial information provider Moneyfacts reports that two-year fixed deals are not far behind, averaging 5.98% — their highest point since December 2023. The speed of the increase has stunned industry watchers: since the start of September, roughly 1,500 fixed-rate mortgage deals priced below 5% have disappeared from the market. Today, just nine such deals remain, a collapse of 99% in little more than a month.

Rachel Springall, a finance expert at Moneyfacts, did not mince words about the impact. “Average fixed mortgage rates rising back to three-year highs will be disastrous news for borrowers,” she said. “Borrowers who were hoping mortgage rates would stabilise will be disappointed.” She added that rising rates were “inevitable” given the pressure lenders are facing from higher wholesale funding costs.

Why mortgage rates are climbing so fast

The surge is not being driven by a change in the Bank of England’s base rate, which has remained untouched since December last year. Instead, turmoil in global bond markets is pushing up gilt yields — the cost of government borrowing — which in turn affects the swap rates lenders use to price fixed mortgage deals.

Much of this volatility has been linked to the ongoing war in Iran, which has rattled international markets and fuelled broader economic uncertainty. Major High Street lenders including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Nationwide, NatWest, Santander and TSB have all repeatedly hiked their fixed rates in recent weeks, with Barclays alone making four separate rounds of increases in September.

For borrowers, the mechanics matter: once a fixed mortgage rate is locked in, it typically stays the same for two or five years, regardless of what happens in the wider market. But when that term ends, homeowners must shop for a new deal — and many are about to find the market has shifted dramatically beneath them.

Who stands to be hit hardest

According to Bank of England forecasts, just over five million homeowners are expected to see their monthly mortgage repayments rise by the end of 2028 as their current fixed deals expire and they’re forced to refinance at today’s higher mortgage rates.

The financial toll is significant. Figures from the HomeOwners Alliance show that a £250,000 loan fixed at 6% for five years now costs £158 more per month than the same loan would have cost at the 4.94% average rate recorded back in February. For families already stretched by other rising costs, that gap could prove decisive.

Springall advised borrowers nearing the end of a fixed term to act early. “It would be wise to seek advice and compare deals carefully,” she said, noting that some lenders allow customers to lock in a new rate as much as six months before their existing deal expires — a window that could help homeowners dodge further increases if rates continue climbing.

Not everyone is locking in, however. Springall noted that while the number of sub-5% fixed deals has collapsed, variable-rate mortgages priced below 5% have remained comparatively stable, prompting some borrowers to consider tracker mortgages tied to the Bank of England’s base rate instead of fixed terms.

Ripple effects across the housing market

The consequences are already visible beyond individual household budgets. Nationwide building society recently reported that annual house price growth had halved in September, a sign that buyers are growing increasingly cautious as borrowing costs climb.

Ian Harris, president of the estate agents’ body NAEA Propertymark, said members were seeing the squeeze firsthand. “For some buyers, even a relatively small increase in monthly repayments can mean they have to reduce their budget or step back from a purchase altogether,” he said. “Equally, homeowners coming off fixed-rate deals may face significantly higher repayments, which could affect their decision to move.”

The pressure on mortgage rates comes against a backdrop of wider cost-of-living strain. Diesel prices passed £2 a litre in the UK for the first time on Friday, domestic energy prices rose 4% at the start of October, and regulator Ofgem is expected to announce a further 16% increase to the energy price cap in January.

With household budgets being squeezed from multiple directions, the government is facing mounting pressure to offer targeted support in this month’s Budget. For now, though, the message from the mortgage market is unambiguous: after a year in which many borrowers hoped for relief, rates are heading firmly in the wrong direction.

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Britain’s brain drain has become the latest battleground in Westminster politics, after shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith used a conference speech to beg young people not to abandon the country, promising tax cuts and housing reforms to keep them here.

Speaking to Conservative Party members on Monday, Griffith made an emotional appeal that doubled as a political pitch, arguing that his party, not Labour, offers young Britons the clearest path to a stable, prosperous life at home. The newly appointed shadow chancellor said reversing the exodus of young workers was now central to Tory economic strategy, framing it as a crisis every bit as urgent as the debates around asylum and migration that have dominated headlines in recent months.

“Many Labour MPs spend their time talking about safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to come here,” Griffith told the room. “Well, what about safe and legal routes for our own young people to get a job, buy a home, have a good life? Does that not count?”

The scale of Britain’s brain drain

The numbers behind Griffith’s appeal are striking. According to the Office for National Statistics, roughly 246,000 British nationals left the country in 2025, with nearly half of those departures made up of people aged between 16 and 34. That figure has given fresh ammunition to critics who argue the UK is failing to retain the young talent it needs to drive future growth, and it has turned the brain drain into a politically charged phrase that both major parties are now scrambling to address.

Griffith’s message was blunt and personal. “So, if you are thinking of leaving, whether you are young or old, don’t,” he said. “Many of the things we hold dear are threatened as never before, but none have yet been lost. Stay, stay and help us win.” The line was as much a rallying cry to party loyalists as it was a direct message to disillusioned young voters weighing up a move abroad.

Tax cuts and housing pledges as the fix

To back up the rhetoric, Griffith pointed to a string of policies the Conservatives have rolled out over the past year that he says are designed to ease the financial pressure driving the brain drain. Chief among them is a pledge to scrap stamp duty on primary residences, a move the party claims could save homebuyers tens of thousands of pounds and make getting on the property ladder realistic for younger buyers locked out of the market.

The party has also proposed reforming student loans to stop debt “spiralling,” and Griffith used his speech to confirm the Tories would scrap Labour’s so-called mansion tax, a levy on properties worth more than £2 million. Taken together, the measures are meant to paint a picture of a party actively fighting to keep young people’s economic prospects alive in Britain rather than abroad.

Griffith went further, setting out a personal ambition that he said would guide his approach if he becomes chancellor. “Like Nigel Lawson, it is my ambition to scrap at least one tax every budget,” he said, invoking the late Thatcher-era chancellor as a model for aggressive tax reform. He described tax cuts as his “North Star,” a signal that reducing the overall tax burden will remain the centrepiece of Tory economic messaging heading into the next election.

Pensions row overshadows the pitch

The appeal to younger voters comes as the Conservatives face scrutiny over their commitment to the state pension triple lock, which guarantees the pension rises each year by whichever is highest of wage growth, inflation, or 2.5%. Labour’s Andy Burnham said last week his party would campaign on reforming the uprating mechanism, a move Griffith seized on, telling the BBC on Monday morning that young people themselves oppose scrapping the triple lock because it protects their own parents and grandparents.

Not everyone agrees the issue is resonating as loudly as the headlines suggest. One senior government source said the intense media scrutiny of the Tories’ pensions stance was not necessarily shared by the wider public, suggesting the triple lock row may be more of an inside-Westminster story than a doorstep issue. Still, the timing is notable: by tying the pensions debate to his brain drain message, Griffith is attempting to position the Conservatives as the party for both ends of the age spectrum, pensioners and young workers alike.

Whether the strategy can actually reverse the brain drain remains to be seen. Tax pledges and housing reforms take time to bear fruit, and Griffith’s speech offered promises rather than enacted policy. But with net departures running into the hundreds of thousands and young people disproportionately represented among those leaving, the political pressure to show tangible progress on the brain drain is unlikely to ease any time soon.

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Chick-fil-A is proving that a family business can still outgrow nearly every rival in the restaurant industry without ever ringing a bell on Wall Street. The Atlanta-based chicken chain pulled in $10.3 billion in revenue last year, a 14% jump, and net income of $1.05 billion, according to franchise disclosures reviewed by CNBC. That performance, paired with $23.92 billion in systemwide sales across roughly 3,000 locations, makes it the third-largest restaurant chain in the country by sales, trailing only McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Yet CEO Andrew Cathy, who took over from his father Dan nearly five years ago, insists the company has no interest in chasing the kind of windfall an initial public offering could bring. “We’re able to plan for the quarter century, and we don’t have to plan for the quarter,” Cathy told CNBC, describing the company’s growth strategy as “calculated” and “conservative” even as it pushes into new international markets.

Why staying a family business still works

Chick-fil-A was founded by Cathy’s grandfather, S. Truett Cathy, and has remained privately held and family-controlled ever since. That structure means the company doesn’t report quarterly earnings to shareholders or face pressure to hit short-term growth targets — a freedom Cathy says lets leadership focus on decades-long plans rather than fiscal quarters.

The timing of that philosophy looks especially shrewd given how public restaurant stocks have performed this year. Shares of Jersey Mike’s have dropped nearly 28% since its July IPO, and Dunkin’ parent Inspire Brands is reportedly holding off on going public until the sector’s fortunes improve. For a family business like Chick-fil-A, staying out of public markets has become less a sentimental choice and more a practical advantage.

It also hasn’t slowed expansion. The chain opened 179 new restaurants last year and has launched operations in Canada, the United Kingdom and Singapore in recent years, part of a $1 billion international growth plan. Its venture arm has also rolled out Daybright, a beverage-focused concept aimed at capturing a different kind of customer than the flagship chicken sandwich shops.

Navigating industry headwinds

The broader restaurant industry has had a rough stretch. Elevated costs and increasingly selective consumers have hurt traffic at McDonald’s, Popeyes, KFC and other major chains. Cathy acknowledged the pressure but said Chick-fil-A’s locations haven’t seen the same slump. “This has been a good year,” he said. “Our operators have done such a good job executing on the fundamentals and adding the hospitality to it.”

That focus on hospitality is central to how Cathy frames the balance between legacy and growth. He compared running the business to driving a race car: “There’s a reason that the windshield’s bigger than the rearview mirror. It’s important for the rear view to be grounded on where you are, and there are things that we think about our purpose, our mission, that won’t change, but everything else we have to be able to evolve and change.”

Some traditions are untouchable — Chick-fil-A’s restaurants will continue closing on Sundays, a policy in place since the company’s founding. Others, like the specifics of in-store hospitality, are expected to shift as customer habits evolve, particularly around how people order and receive food. Cathy said the chain is taking a “human plus” approach to new technology, exploring tools like artificial intelligence and even drone delivery without abandoning the personal service that has defined its brand.

As competitors chase public listings or restructure under private equity ownership, Chick-fil-A’s choice to remain a family business stands out as increasingly rare among chains of its size. For Cathy, that rarity is the point — a bet that long-term thinking, not quarterly results, is what keeps the chain growing while so many rivals stumble.

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Energy bills are once again at the centre of a political storm, with the industry’s own trade body warning the government that delaying support for struggling households could trigger a deeper and more expensive crisis than the one Britain endured just a few years ago.

Energy UK, which represents suppliers, says ministers need to act immediately rather than wait for conditions to worsen further. The warning comes after domestic gas prices rose on Thursday and new forecasts pointed to a steep increase in energy bills from January, just as colder weather pushes up demand.

Figures reported by the BBC this week suggest a 16% rise in domestic energy prices is likely in the new year for roughly 20 million households on variable tariffs governed by regulator Ofgem’s price cap. That cap, which limits the maximum price suppliers can charge per unit of gas and electricity, already rose by 4% at the start of October — adding about £60 a year, or £5 a month, to a typical household’s costs and pushing the average annual bill for dual-fuel customers paying by direct debit to £1,723.

Energy bills could near £2,000 by January

The outlook for the new year is considerably bleaker. Consultancy Cornwall Insight forecasts that the same typical annual bill could rise to £1,999 in January, a jump that would mark the sharpest seasonal increase in four years and pile further strain on household budgets already stretched by the broader cost of living.

Energy UK acknowledges the government has taken some steps to ease the burden, including a cut to VAT on electricity bills that took effect on Thursday and the earlier removal or shifting of certain levies into general taxation. But the trade body argues those gains have already been swallowed up by soaring wholesale costs, which suppliers must pay before passing charges on to customers.

Much of that wholesale pressure, the organisation says, stems from international instability — particularly conflict in the Middle East and disruption to shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz — echoing the dynamics that sent bills spiralling after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“We cannot afford to wait,” says industry chief

Dhara Vyas, chief executive of Energy UK, said the lessons of the last crisis must not be ignored. “We cannot afford to wait for the same scale of crisis before acting again,” she said, pointing to mounting customer debt as evidence that households are already struggling before the worst of the winter price rises take hold.

Vyas said the growing debt burden now adds an average of £67 a year to every household’s bill, regardless of whether they are behind on payments themselves. “Last-minute emergency interventions run the risk of being badly targeted and costing us all more,” she warned, urging the government to move before prices jump again in January rather than scrambling to respond afterwards.

Her comments followed a stark warning from Simone Rossi, chief executive of EDF Energy, who said on Thursday that the UK was “walking into a second energy crisis.” Adam Scorer, head of the fuel poverty charity National Energy, echoed the concern, telling BBC Breakfast that rising debt levels reflect not simply more people falling behind on payments, but poorer households sinking deeper into financial difficulty with no clear way out.

“Until you do something about that, there’s no way forward, there’s no breathing space, there’s no future for households who can’t see their way beyond debt,” Scorer said.

What suppliers want the government to do

Energy UK has set out a series of measures it wants ministers to consider as part of an urgent response. These include targeted financial support that goes beyond the existing £150 Warm Home Discount offered to people on benefits, eventually paving the way for a discounted social tariff for the most vulnerable customers.

The trade body is also calling for a debt relief scheme aimed at households that have fallen furthest behind, alongside a broader strategy to stop debt accumulating among new tenants and homeowners in the first place. It further wants more levies stripped from electricity bills and shifted onto general taxation, part of a long-term push toward electrification that supporters argue would make switching away from gas more financially attractive.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, speaking after the warnings emerged, said he would not describe Rossi’s “second crisis” comments as an overstatement, acknowledging that the cost of home energy — along with petrol and diesel prices — remained “very difficult indeed” for many families. He said the government was “looking at any measure that can give people breathing space, that can take the pressure off.”

With forecasts pointing to energy bills climbing toward £2,000 a year for typical households by January, pressure is mounting on Westminster to decide quickly whether it will intervene now or risk repeating the costly, reactive scramble that characterised the last major energy crisis.