The Bank of England is likely to leave UK interest rates unchanged today.

Decision-makers on the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) are widely expected to keep interest rates on hold at 5.25% for the fourth time in a row.

Two of the world’s largest central banks have already made their decisions when it comes to rates in recent days, and the Bank of England is expected to follow suit.

The European Central Bank held on 25 January, while the Federal Reserve held their base rate yesterday, having already signalled the “pivot” in December.

Sanjay Raja, a senior economist for Deutsche Bank, said he thinks it could be a unanimous vote on the nine-person MPC to keep rates at 5.25%.

However, he believes there could be a “subtle but important shift” in the Bank’s outlook for future rate cuts, although policymakers are likely to retain their cautious stance of keeping borrowing costs higher for long enough to get inflation under control, he said.

Allan Monks, a UK economist for JP Morgan, also believes rates will be kept the same on today, but that the Bank will “almost certainly make a dovish pivot that puts future easing higher up on the agenda than before”.

Matt Smith, Rightmove’s mortgage commentator, added: “We’ve had the busiest month for people getting a mortgage in principle since we launched the service in 2022, which shows that many future movers want to understand what they are likely to be able to borrow from a lender if taking out a mortgage soon.

“Average mortgage rates continue to trickle down on the whole, however we’re now seeing those with smaller deposits benefit the most, whereas those who need to borrow less have seen some small increases in rates due swap rate trends. If the Base Rate announcement tomorrow is as uneventful as the markets are predicting, we should see a stable few weeks for the mortgage market ahead of the Spring Budget.”