The unemployment rate rose to 5.2 per cent in the last three months of 2025, the highest since 2015 not including the pandemic, according to the data from the Office for National Statistics.
It hit 5.3 per cent in late 2020 and stood at 5.1 per cent in the three months to November.
"Today's data raises the prospect of the Bank of England resuming cutting interest rates in March," Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said.
The data from the ONS showed weaker inflationary heat from growth in workers' earnings.
Annual wage growth, excluding bonuses, slowed to 4.2 per cent in the last three months of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier, matching forecasts by most economists in a Reuters poll and down from 4.4 per cent in the three months to November.
The BoE is watching pay as a gauge of how long Britain's above-target inflation is likely to last.
Earlier in February, the central bank said previously strong wage growth in the private sector was starting to reflect the weakening of the jobs market.
Private sector annual wage growth excluding bonuses slowed to 3.4 per cent in the three months to December, down from 3.6 per cent in the three months to November.
Last week ONS data showed weaker-than-expected growth in the overall economy in the October-to-December period, hurt in part by speculation about tax increases in finance minister Rachel Reeves' budget at the end of November.
There were some signs in the most recent figures included in Tuesday's data release that the labour market might be stabilising after taking a hit on Reeves' increase last April in a tax paid by employers.
The number of people in payrolled employment fell by 11,000 people in January from December.
In December, payrolls fell by a revised 6000, the smallest drop since August last year and a much softer fall than a provisional estimate of a plunge of 43,000.
