Defense spending as share of GDP in the UK 1980-2021

In 2021, the United Kingdom's defense spending as a share of Gross Domestic Product was estimated to have been 2.3 percent. Since 1980, the UK's defense spending was at it's highest in 1984 when 5.5 percent of the UK's GDP was spent on the military. After 1984, defense spending declined gradually, and then at a much faster pace after the end of the Cold War in 1991, with the United Kingdom only just reaching the two percent benchmark set by NATO by 2018.