From packed lunches to uniforms, how the back-to-school UK costs stack up

Trousers are 1.90 more than 2018, and trainers 6.57 more ... add an item to our visual tool to see how prices have risen in the past five years

Parents braced for the back-to-school rush have an extra problem on their plate this year, with the cost of a packed lunch rising by almost three times the UK rate of headline inflation.

A typical packed lunch, made up of a sandwich, an apple and a small yoghurt, costs 2.17 - 32p more a serving than a year ago and equivalent to 61 more over the course of the school year than last year, an 18% rise. That is 105 more a child for each school year than in 2018-19.