Millions of people across Britain were braced to discover if they are winners or losers from the first Labour Budget in 14 years which was delivered by Rachel Reeves on Wednesday.
The Chancellor announced £40 billion of tax rises, more than £32 billion extra borrowing over five years, and £22.6 billion more for day-to-day health spending to fix the NHS.
Here is an analysis of who might be hit or helped by her fiscal plans.
Businesses
Businesses are bearing the brunt of the Chancellor’s tax rises, the biggest on record.
The Budget includes an increase in employers' National Insurance contributions by 1.2 percentage points, to 15%, from April 2025.
"And we will reduce the secondary threshold, the level at which employers start paying national insurance on each employee's salary, from £9,100 per year to £5,000. This will raise £25 billion per year by the end of the forecast period,” Ms Reeves added.
The Employment Allowance will be increased from £5,000 to £10,500 which means 865,000 employers won’t pay any National Insurance at all next year.
Businesses are also facing a bill of £5 billion to £7 billion from the increase in the minimum wage, and billions more from new rights for workers.
Dale Walker, from apprenticeships provider Apprentify, said: "Under the new budget, apprentices and those under 18 will be getting an 18% increase, with a pay bump from £6.40 to £7.55 an hour. Workers deserve to be paid the fair rate for the job but without adequate support for businesses this might make Small and medium-sized enterprises hesitant to hire apprentices."
Low paid workers
The minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour next year after the Chancellor confirmed a 6.7% increase.
The increase, recommended by the Low Pay Commission, will mean an extra £1,400 a year for a full-time worker earning the main minimum wage rate, known as the national living wage, from April 2025.
The Chancellor also announced that the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 would rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
Middle income and higher earners
The Chancellor had been widely expected to freeze the thresholds for paying the basic and higher rates of income tax for two years to 2030.
But she told the Commons: “I have come to the conclusion that extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people.”
It would also have exposed her to accusations of breaking the spirit of Labour’s manifesto on tax.
People on benefits
Working age benefits will be uprated in line with CPI inflation, at 1.7%.
The Government is determined to get more people back to work and to stop the welfare bill ballooning so high.
Around £3 billion in cuts are to be made the benefits system and people off work will be given more support to find a job, with £240 million being spent on 16 new “trailblazer” projects to help the economically inactive.
Homeowners and renters
Mortgage rates are set to rise as Ms Reeves goes on a borrowing spree of more than £32 billion over five years, according to the official forecaster.
The Office for Budget Responsibility said they would only go up slightly as interest rates remain higher than they would otherwise have been if it had not been for the additional borrowing.
Renters often end up paying more for their home if their landlord’s mortgage goes up, and sometimes less if it goes down.
Home buyers
Home buyers face higher stamp duty.
The Government did not pledge to extend the higher thresholds at which people start paying stamp duty.
The Tories raised the “nil rate” threshold from £125,000 to £250,000, and for first- time buyers it rose from £300,000 to £425,000.
Second-home buyers will face a stamp duty land tax surcharge rise of two percentage points - to 5% - starting from Thursday.
Pensioners
The basic and new State Pension will be uprated by 4.1% in 2025-26. This means that over 12 million pensioners will gain up to £470 next year which the Chancellor stressed was up to £275 more than if uprated by inflation.
The Pension Credit Standard Minimum Guarantee will also rise by 4.1% from around £11,400 per year to around £11,850 for a single pensioner.
But millions of pensioners are losing their winter fuel payment, apart from those on Pension Credit.
Patients
Ms Reeved announced a £22.6 billion increase in the day to-day health budget and a £3.1bn rise in the capital budget over this year and next year, including for more scanners.
But he has warned of another difficult winter with some patients still expected to be waiting on trolleys and in hospital corridors.
Pupils
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has already announced some £1.4 billion to rebuild crumbling schools, as well as a tripling of investment in free breakfast clubs, £1.8 billion for the expansion of Government-funded childcare, and £44 million to support kinship and foster carers.
The core schools budget will go up by £2.3bn next year.
However, the Government has been criticised for imposing VAT on private school fees which it says will raise funds to pay for 6,500 more teachers in state schools.
Shareholders
Labour is increasing capital gains tax, in a move designed to raise £2.5 billion over the coming years.
Ms Reeves said she will raise the lower rate of CGT to 18%, up from 10%, while the higher rate will increase to 24% from 20% previously.
CGT is charged on profit from selling an asset that has increased in value, such as stocks that are not held in an ISA, or a second home.
The tax applies to individuals, but also to company owners, partners in a business, and self-employed people, among others.
Drivers
Motorists were expecting the Chancellor to raise fuel duty for the first time in 14 years but she kept the 5p cut in place.
To encourage the take-up of electric vehicles. incentives for electric vehicles in Company Car Tax will be maintained from 2028 and the differential between fully electric and other vehicles will be increased in the first year rates of Vehicle Excise Duty from April 2025. These measures aim to be raising around £400 million a year.
Smokers and vapers
Tax on hand-rolling tobacco will increase by 10% while a flat rate levy will be imposed on all vaping liquids from October 2026.
The Tobacco Duty escalator will be renewed for the remainder of this Parliament at RPI+2%.
Inheritance tax
Reforms to inheritance tax will see inherited pension pots subjected to IHT from April 2027.
The freeze on IHT thresholds will be extended by two years until 2030.
A relief for farms to be passed on through families will be scaled back.
Given that more than half of inheritance tax is paid on estates in London and the South East, these two regions could be heavily impacted by the broader reforms to IHT.
Soldiers
The defence budget got a £2.9 billion boost, according to reports, which will be used to give soldiers a pay rise backdated to April, and to buy weapons, with the aim of replenishing stockpiles depleted by donations to Ukraine.
The nation
The Chancellor’s Budget is a bold and risky gamble which if successful could boost living standards in the UK but if not may mean tax and borrowing rises with little to show for them.
