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Nearly half of all brokers expect the first base rate hike to come in 2015.

Some 44% of brokers expect the Bank of England to raise rates at some time in 2015, while 36% thought it would wait until 2016.

Only one in 10 brokers expect the Bank to raise borrowing costs next year, according to a new survey by bridging specialist United Trust Bank.

The results follow Bank governor Mark Carney's claim last week that the UK’s unemployment rate has a ‘two-in-five chance of hitting 7% in 2014", the trigger point at which the Bank will consider raising rates.

Unemployment recently fell to 7.6%, while the Bank recently raised its prediction for UK economic growth in 2014 from 2.5% to 2.8%. Yet despite these positive figures, fears of a rate hike have eased recently.

Harley Kagan, managing director of United Trust Bank, said: "Mark Carney’s more upbeat assessment of the state of the UK economy together with the better than expected unemployment figures suggest that brokers predicting an interest rate rise in 2015 could be right on the money.

“Although the chances of unemployment hitting 7% next year are less than 50/50 it would take an extraordinary turn of events to prompt the Bank of England to increase interest rates in 2014 and risk choking off what appears to be a real hope of economic recovery."

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