"Food prices and a range of transport costs helped to push up inflation in September. These effects were partly offset by clothing prices that rose less strongly than this time last year," said ONS statistician Mike Prestwood.
Last month the BoE said it expected inflation to exceed 3 percent in October, higher than it had forecast just a month before, when it predicted it would take more than three years for inflation to return to its 2 percent target.
Although much of the effect of the pound`s decline has already been felt by consumers, some retailers are only now starting to pass on price rises.
On Monday, furniture retailer IKEA Group said it had increased prices in Britain by 3 percent to compensate for the slump in sterling.
The pound has fallen around 12 percent since the referendum against a trade-weighted basket of major currencies such as the U. dollar and the euro.
Last week BoE Governor Mark Carney said the central bank expected to raise interest rates in the coming months but he declined to be drawn on whether it would be as soon as next month, or if a series of rises is planned.
Core consumer price inflation - which strips out changes in the typically volatile prices of energy, food, alcohol and tobacco - was steady at 2.7 percent, as expected in the Reuters poll.
Annual growth in factory gate prices cooled to 3.3 percent, as expected, compared with 3.4 percent in August.
But prices paid by factories for materials and energy rose by 8.4 percent year-on-year, the same rate as August`s upwardly revised figure and slightly higher than forecast.
The ONS also released figures for house prices in August, which showed an 5.0 percent annual rise across the United Kingdom as a whole compared with a 4.5 percent increase in July. Prices in London alone rose 2.
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