ONS Plan for Economic Statistics: progress update​ December 2025

This update captures the key steps and improvements made by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) across each of the themes contained in The plan for ONS economic statistics to deliver the first steps on the road to once again delivering trusted and high-quality statistics. This report is honest about our progress and puts this in the context of learning from recent statistical errors. We will continue to share this information transparently with users. Within this, we have made important further developments as we have uncovered new complexities and issues, which are also reflected in this update.

I remain confident that the progress made against the activities will continue to deliver meaningful improvements and reaffirm the ONS as a world-leading economic statistics producer.

Liz McKeown and Grant Fitzner

The plan for economic statistics (ESP) outlines the key steps the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is taking to deliver improvements to secure high-quality economic and population statistics to meet user needs. The ESP is supported by the Survey and Improvement and Enhancement Plan (SIEP), which describes parallel work to improve our surveys. The ESP sets out actions across a number themes: gross domestic product (GDP) and national accounts, trade and balance of payments, prices, labour markets, population, public sector finances, and implementation of international macro-economic statistical standards, and systems developments.

Since its publication in June 2025, we have made meaningful progress in tackling the challenge of rebuilding trust in our core economic statistics. Updates on progress have, and continue to be, regularly reported to the UK Statistics Authority Board. Within the ESP, we also committed to publishing a household finances recovery plan addressing both the surveys and published statistics. An update on our progress towards this and our plans around stakeholder engagement are provided within this report.

Current status

Of 40 milestones covering 2025/26, the current position is:

• five have been successfully delivered; this includes improvements to prices statistics, increasing the Labour Force Survey (LFS) sample size, maintaining 50% of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) sample being collected online, data collection improvements for business prices and House Price Indices (HPI) method improvements

• 15 remain on track for delivery by March 2026, with a further 15 on track but more challenging to deliver by that date

• five are at risk of not delivering by the target date and are all being closely managed; these principally relate to the issues with surveys (specifically the Statistical Business Register (SBR), ASHE, and the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS)), and we are also reassessing the milestone relating to quarterly regional GDP, as research has identified further methods and data challenges that need to be addressed before we can reinstate these estimates

The National Accounts and gross domestic product (GDP) theme covers a wide range of topics, with 19 identified areas being taken forward. We have put in place new governance with clear milestone tracking, balancing risks and sequencing. Early delivery confidence assessments vary across the workstreams, reflecting resource allocations and the different expected delivery timelines.

We regularly introduce updates to methods, data, and systems to improve the quality of UK economic data. This year's Blue Book and Pink Book publications saw the successful implementation of 47 scope items, driving meaningful quality improvements across the publications. There were improvements in globalisation methodology, enhanced estimates for industries such as pharmaceuticals, and the new treatment of Research and Development. Detailed information and their impact can be seen in our GDP revisions in Blue Book: 2025 article.

More recently, we have responded to user feedback and refocused our monthly GDP publication to emphasise the “three-month on three-month" movements as the lead indicator, in line with the approach taken when monthly GDP was first introduced. This has reduced the focus on the monthly movements, which are more volatile and can be sensitive to one-off impacts.

There are three strands with a current delivery date of March 2026. These are:

• reviewing the approach for balancing the Supply and Use tables, working jointly with the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE); this is currently on track

• preparatory scoping work to plan the delivery of a measurement of natural resource depletion required for Net Domestic Product under the System of National Accounts 2025 (SNA25) is due to start in December 2025; this milestone will deliver internal delivery plans as this is a multi-year strand of work, including research of the depletion topics

• quarterly regional estimates of GDP, which will take account of the recent ESCoE review of methods; the delivery date will be moved to a later date, as research has identified further methods and data challenges

Other strands with later delivery dates are being managed appropriately to ensure they are in the best position to succeed. For example, improving the timeliness of delivering the Annual Business Survey is being progressed to enable an earlier Blue Book cycle for 2027. This means higher quality provisional data is available for use in the National Accounts earlier, and we can bring forward our Blue Book and Pink Book publications.

Resourcing remains a critical focus. We are tracking resources monthly and escalating critical gaps to the ESP ONS Steering Group for resolution and coordinated action. For complex deliverables, resourcing requirements will become clearer as work progresses, particularly where greater understanding highlights where additional topic knowledge is needed, for example, use of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data.

Detailed planning on priority workstreams is enabling us to identify pressures on subject matter expert resource and the sequencing of deliverables. Active and transparent risk management approaches are being used, with monthly assessments and clear escalation routes in place. For example, as a result of this process, the new Classification of Individual Consumption according to Purpose (COICOP) implementation has been formally moved to a later date (2029) and sequencing of changes has been highlighted across the impacted areas (Prices, Labour Market and National Accounts).

Trade statistics are a key component of the expenditure approach to gross domestic product (GDP) and part of the current account within the Balance of Payments (BoP), which also includes the financial account and international investment position.

Significant progress has been made filling vacancies to deliver Plan for economic statistics (ESP) milestones, but some areas, including Trade in services, have experienced high staff turnover so there is a focus on rebuilding subject matter expertise.

Trade in Goods progress

A methodology review of our trade in goods processing system has begun, although at a slower pace than expected. Additional resources have been allocated, and we are exploring whether completion is still on track for March 2026; full system re-development is a multi-year project due to its complexity, with a target date in 2028.

Trade in Services progress

We are on track to publish a user guide for the statistics, and to undertake bias adjustments investigation work, required for Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) accreditation; we are determining a new mechanism for modelling and forecasting, to mitigate temporary gaps in International Passenger Survey (IPS) data, with options currently being reviewed.

Foreign Direct Investment progress

We have completed one milestone within the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) theme, with publication of the full suite of improved and fully processed data in Pink Book 2025, following a pause to FDI statistics production; legacy system redevelopment to produce FDI geography and benchmarked data is on track for delivery in March 2026, a year ahead of schedule, with testing underway.

Balance of Payments progress

Investigation of data sources will commence in January 2026. The re-platforming of the legacy systems underpinning the Financial Accounts, Dividend and Investment Matrix, and Balance of Payments is aiming for completion in 2028; our Balance of Payment Manual (BPM7) discovery is defining the workplan and resourcing requirements for implementing the new international standards.

Trade in Services challenges

Longer term work to redevelop the international trade in services survey system is in flight, but completion may be delayed to March 2027 from January 2027 to enable complete assurance.

Balance of Payments challenges

The new BoP geography data system requires more time for testing, and a parallel run, before transition; deployment may therefore move to June 2026 to ensure data quality.

Foreign Direct Investment challenges

A number of milestones remain dependent on the new Statistical Business Register.

Prices includes all consumer price statistics, statistics on business prices and the housing market. The ONS has already successfully delivered three Prices Plan for economic statistics (ESP) milestones and is on track to deliver all of the remaining ones for March 2026. More detailed planning for 2027 and 2028 milestones has identified new complexities and resource requirements, which are likely to mean some eventual delivery dates will be later.

Consumer prices

Data collection and processing continue to move to a cloud-based strategic platform, with initial work to move central data collection now underway. The ONS remains on track to deliver point-of-sale scanner data for around 50% of the UK grocery market into production in March 2026, and to introduce improvements to methods and samples covering video games and hotels. The implementation of Classification of Individual Consumption according to Purpose (COICOP18) involves dependencies across household surveys data, national accounts and prices. The new target date reflects complexities and sequencing of this work.

Business prices

The ONS has achieved two main milestones since the ESP was released in June. The publication of the monthly producer prices bulletin and tables was successfully restarted. Source data collection has also been successfully migrated to an electronic collection system enabling digital-first collection.

Planning work has begun for end-to-end transformation of business price statistics, covering surveys and processing, highlighting some potential challenges (see our ONS Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan for Economic Statistics (SIEP) for details) and the need for a shared ONS strategic technology solution vision as outputs come off legacy systems. We will announce updated target dates for improving sampling and recruitment and migration away from legacy systems in a future quarterly update of the ESP.

Housing statistics

The updated Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) development plan and response to a recent PIPR user questionnaire was published on 30 October.

Interim House Price Index (HPI) methods improvements were successfully introduced in August 2025, reducing bias in early estimates of house price inflation. Moving HPI production onto a strategic platform is expected to complete by March 2026.

The ONS still intends to undertake a full methods review for house prices from March 2026 onwards. However, there is a greater risk to the March 2027 delivery date aligned with staff recruitment.

The ONS produces both monthly Public Sector Finances (jointly with HM Treasury) and the Public Sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) (currently approximately 20% of GDP). This includes the Economic Statistics classification process, which determines which organisations sit within the Public Sector, which impacts headline estimates, including the Government’s target measure Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities (PSNFL).

The public sector theme has made early progress by using our new local government pipeline to process Public Sector Finances and National Accounts data, achieving efficiency gains. We have also had positive engagement from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) on our response to their requirements for the economic classifications process. The first phase of development of a new central government estimates pipeline is on track, with ambitions to replace a legacy platform with our cloud-based National Accounts Central ONS Repository for Data (CORD) system in the Annual National Accounts update in September 2026, increasing resilience in the team.

Following publication of the Plan for economic statistics (ESP), issues have emerged around external data.

External data issues

An error in Value Added Tax (VAT) receipts data from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) led to a correction in our Public Sector Finance statistics. HMRC has implemented immediate improvements to quality assurance processes, working with HM Treasury and the ONS, and it will also conduct a review across all receipts to consider the underlying issue and identify actions to mitigate against this being repeated. The OSR will provide an independent perspective on this, in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The ONS will also investigate how our plans for a cloud-based data ingest and processing system for public sector data can enable better cross-department quality assurance. Our redeveloped Local Government pipeline forms the basis of this work but needs to be developed further to meet wider needs. Work is in the early stages, and while recruitment of technology specialists has gone well, we are currently reviewing our sequencing of work, which may cause some milestones to be delivered later.

There have been challenges in obtaining timely and high-quality estimates for recent periods, particularly for expenditure by local authorities. These data are received by the ONS from published sources from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and the Devolved Administrations, but are subject to uncertainty and revision for a lengthy period after first publication because of the way in which local authorities report expenditure. Therefore, the ONS, HM Treasury, MHCLG, and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) have agreed to form a joint Local Government Financial Information task force to investigate and address these concerns, with the objective of improving the flow of data to the ONS and the quality of our statistics. The first phase focuses on English local authority finance data. Investigations will begin late in 2025 and are expected to continue throughout 2026. We will integrate this with previous ESP commitments through our annual business planning exercise.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) labour market statistics are derived from household surveys, business surveys and administrative data. Our focus is ensuring labour market statistics are at expected levels of quality, with strong inputs, methods, platforms and processes, supported by a skilled and adequately resourced team. We have therefore initially focussed on “at risk” outputs:

• Labour Force Survey (LFS)

• Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE)

• Average Weekly Earnings (AWE)

• workforce jobs

There are currently 22 labour market Plan for economic statistics (ESP) milestones. We are looking to consolidate these. Dependencies and resource constraints may lead to revised dates for some milestones. We will keep users informed as part of these quarterly updates.

The latest labour market updates are provided in this section, with more detail available in our regular labour market transformation articles.

Employment, unemployment and inactivity (LFS and TLFS)

We closely monitor the LFS and regularly update users through our LFS quality update articles. As a result of the improvements made to address LFS quality concerns, response levels have shown clear improvement with Wave 1 response levels now similar to their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level. We have also delivered design improvements to the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS), including the short Core Survey launched in July 2025. The ONS Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan for Economic Statistics (SIEP) provides more detail on survey improvements and areas that continue to present challenges, such as TLFS data rotation, pay and earnings questions, and complex variables (Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) and Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)), where implementation is now planned to commence from April 2026. We will monitor impacts with key users and provide regular updates.

We are also progressing work on administrative data, including linking HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) to TLFS and LFS to improve our understanding of possible bias in our surveys. We have strengthened internal governance around this theme, bringing it into a formal project and have progressed a proof-of-concept analysis using the 2021 Census. Findings from this analysis will inform our next steps, where the priority is on extending beyond 2021 to understand how our data varies over time. Work is also underway to assess linkage quality between the LFS and Demographic Index to support wider analysis of linked data.

Alongside this, we continue our work on a linked employer-employee dataset (LEED) through developing a prototype linking our Longitudinal Business Database to HMRC’s PAYE RTI data.

We continue to share transparently and consult on our work on this theme through a range of external engagement exercises, including the Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Labour Market Statistics.

Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE)

Work to modernise our ASHE statistics is underway. We recently published a blog on how the ONS is improving its annual earnings survey, outlining the main areas of progress and future plans, including the modernisation of the ASHE production systems.

We are aligning ESP and SIEP ASHE milestones, which may result in consolidation. Dependencies and resource constraints may lead to revised delivery dates for some milestones, and other milestones may be superseded. Two alternative modes are being developed for the businesses not already covered by electronic data collection, and final decisions will be based on statistical, operational and technical parameters.

Other labour statistics

The published AWE milestones will likely require revision due to resource pressures, but we are actively managing and mitigating this through a range of actions, including a resource mapping exercise and regular prioritisation reviews. In addition, work also continues on Jobs and labour productivity (including multi-factor productivity and regional and international comparisons of productivity).

Migration

In November 2025, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a migration methods update, moving us away from reliance on the International Passenger Survey and improving the information available. Across our outputs we are working to implement best practice coding and pipelines, with migration outputs expected to meet best practice standards by March 2026.

Improvements to mid-year population estimates

We continue to make greater use of administrative data to improve the quality of population estimates, with updates to be published before March 2026.

In terms of other specifics within the Plan for economic statistics (ESP), the sensitivity of the model to input data sources has been tested, elements of the ONS coding best practice standards have been delivered with the work programme continuing into 2026, and we continue to improve our understanding of the quality of the Demographic Index, working to the March 2026 deadline. A four-country agreement has been developed to ensure we understand the coherence across different data and across the UK. This document will be regularly reviewed to ensure any changes around the use of admin data are reflected.

User engagement remains key. One of our recent user engagement exercises found limited user need for the winter 2025/26 official provisional mid-2025 estimates, highlighting that users would rather wait for the summer estimates. This specific change will be reflected in the updated ESP plan.

Population projections

Following user engagement, we are planning the release of 2024-based national population projections (NPPs) in April 2026. We have undertaken a methods review for setting migration assumptions and will confirm our plans in the coming months.

The International Macro-economic Statistical Standards (IMSS) encompass a suite of updated frameworks essential for modernising UK economic statistics. These include:

• the System of National Accounts (SNA)

• the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM)

• Government Finance Statistics (GFS)

• the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA)

• the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)

• the Classification of Products by Industry (CPA)

• the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP)

Delivery of IMSS is expected to include:

• implementation of prioritised changes from SNA, BPM7, GFS, SEEA and key classifications (for example, SIC, CPA and COICOP)

• we have prioritised SNA gross domestic product (GDP) impacting changes for first delivery, including data-as-an-asset, globalisation, digitalisation, improved volume measurement of public services, sum-of-costs improvements, and natural resource depletion

• we have also prioritised SNA non-GDP impacting changes, mostly impacting the financial service sector and balance sheets

• a programme of work has been launched to implement these changes across UK economic statistics and a roadmap has been developed through to 2030 for prioritised changes, though further refinement is expected as interdependencies and sequencing are tested; it remains possible that development of non-GDP impacting component may extend beyond 2030

Classifications

International updates to core classifications have been agreed, including SIC, CPA, COICOP, and SOC. Following Brexit, a consultation concluded in January 2024 that the UK would adopt Eurostat's Nomenclature of Economic Activities (NACE) framework, with flexibility at the four- and five-digit levels for SIC to reflect the UK economy.

A cross-government consultation on SIC2026 is underway, with submissions due in November and ratification by the National Statistician’s Committee for Advice on Standards for Economic Statistics (NS-CASE) in January 2026. Full agreement and linked products are expected by June 2026. Early discovery work is assessing the impact of SIC2026 on National Accounts and survey systems, with further discoveries continuing through 2026 and potentially beyond. Implementation is phased and the first deliverables are:

• a fully functional Statistical Business Register (SBR) capable of dual coding businesses to SIC2007 and SIC2026, which is dependent on a finalised UK SIC2026 structure and mapping between old and new codes; discovery work is identifying impacted downstream systems, as associated sampling and methodological changes are required to be integrated across core economic statistics, and an implementation plan is targeting completion by March 2026

• updates to annual and sub-annual business surveys

• alignment with changes to the CPA expected to mirror SIC updates

The following artificial intelligence (AI) projects to improve the efficiency and quality of statistics production are all on track.

Text Classifier tool

In April 2025, we introduced a new, more efficient survey text classification tool – ClassifAI – which uses Large Language Models to code occupations within the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings Survey (ASHE). This was the first time the Office for National Statistics (ONS) applied Generative AI directly into a statistical process. In doing so, we improved the accuracy of occupation coding while saving hundreds of hours of work, which have been invested into achieving quality datasets. We have also successfully implemented this tool in live production for the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES), improving the accuracy of industry coding while again saving time that can be invested into data quality.

Household Receipt tool

We developed a tool that extracts and classifies text from household receipts to support the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF). Using multimodal Large Language Models, the tool reduces the time needed to process a household’s receipts from around three hours to just a few minutes. We are on track to implement the tool into production from April 2026, delivering significant time savings, allowing staff to focus on higher value-added activities. The tool will also help increase the LCF sample size and improve the accuracy of consumer product classification.

Survey Assistant

We have developed a general-purpose tool designed to suggest relevant follow-up questions when a respondent’s initial answers lack sufficient detail. The tool is currently considered for the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS), where respondents are asked about their industry and occupation. Currently, over half of respondents provide insufficient detail.

Survey Assistant uses Large Language Models to generate targeted follow-up questions, helping to collect higher quality data. Early testing shows the tool reduces unclassifiable responses by more than half. In November, we will invite 2,000 participants to test the tool, with results evaluated in December. Findings will be presented to an internal steering group in January 2026 to inform decisions about integrating the tool into live operations.

Continuous Improvement

Process Excellence is a toolkit of visual aids and ways of working that provide increased visibility of the end-to-end process of producing ONS official statistics. Process Excellence enables transparency and visibility of the process, which in turn enables Quality Assurance and problems and bottleneck fixes. We have implemented two proof-of-concept pilots: Mid-year estimates in Demography and UK Manufacturers’ Sales by Product (ProdCom). The first uses alternative data and the second uses annual survey data. We are now implementing the process in Retail Sales Index.

Enhanced Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAPs) are being developed to migrate off legacy systems, complementing existing efforts to move to open-source programming languages by leveraging modern software-engineering methods and removing all manual processes while retaining human-in-the-loop touch points where domain expertise can identify and resolve errors.

Following the suspension of the accreditation of the Office for National Statistics’s (ONS’s) wealth statistics in June, we committed to developing a plan to bring Household Finance Statistics – covering household income, expenditure and wealth – back to the standard needed by users. This will build on the activities in the ONS Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan for Economic Statistics (SIEP) for the relevant survey sources, including the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF) and the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS).

Since June, we have made progress towards the five requirements in the Office for Statistics Regulation’s (OSR’s) review of wealth statistics. We wrote to the OSR earlier in December summarising our progress and next steps. Given the breadth of development plans across household finance surveys and statistics, we have recently started reviewing how we engage with key government and non-government stakeholders on related topics. This section outlines how we propose to engage wider stakeholders before finalising the plan in spring 2026.

Stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement is central to our commitment to producing trustworthy, high-quality household finance statistics. We understand our users need clear, timely communication about our statistics, their production, development plans, and opportunities to provide feedback.

Our main formal engagement mechanisms are the Expenditure Steering Group and the Wealth Statistics Expert Group, both meeting twice a year, and the quarterly Wealth and Assets Technical Group for funders of the Wealth and Assets Survey. These groups offer regular updates on survey performance, guide ongoing developments, and are an opportunity to bring in subject-matter expertise to enhance the value of household finance statistics.

Since the Household Finance Statistics Transformation programme ended, formal engagement on household income statistics has been more targeted, mainly involving statistical producers within the Government Statistical Service. We are considering whether to broaden the scope of the existing Expenditure Steering Group to cover both income and expenditure, reintroduce a dedicated income-focused group to work in parallel with the Expenditure Steering Group, or whether we reshape existing and new engagement fora to best meet user needs.

Reflecting on feedback, our current short- to longer-term priorities are set out in the following subsections. The work is complex, particularly in the context of wider survey challenges, and we are unable to do all activities in parallel. Sequencing is key and we will need to make trade-offs in deciding priorities. We would therefore welcome further feedback from our users to Wealth.and.Assets.Survey@ons.gov.uk, ahead of finalising our plan and the end-to-end resource needs (also an OSR requirement) by Spring 2026 both on content and our engagement model.

2025/26

1. Establish new expert groups on household finances to strengthen user engagement, as well as widening external collaboration through data sharing and secondments.

2. Assess the feasibility of methodological changes and strategic interventions that can mitigate the impact of the drop in sample size due to stopping the Survey on Living Conditions on official accredited household income statistics.

3. Update quality and methodology reports across core statistical outputs, expanding existing suite of quality metrics as required.

4. Alongside the ongoing work boost the number of achieved interviews across household financial surveys, we will review statistical processing methodology to support the recovery of quality of survey data currently in the field, with an initial focus on WAS.

5. Initiate optimisation of questionnaire content across the suite of household finance surveys, including progressing updates to the LCF to reflect the latest version of Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP).

6. Strategic review of end-to-end resourcing, with initial improvements focusing on data delivery and updated Delivery System.

2026/27

1. Embed initial improvements in end-to-end data processing and delivery management.

2. Further analyse effects of diminishing sample size on the WAS, including impact on output and sample bias.

3. Review of underlying income modelling methodology, including benefits in kind and top-income adjustment.

4. While planned increases to issued sample size for both WAS and LCF (subject to funding confirmation) take effect, communicate the interim impact of lower sample sizes on household income and expenditure statistics and any mitigations put in place.

5. Assess feasibility for further embedding administrative data to improve survey-based estimates of household finances.

2027/28

1. Explore and communicate the feasibility of possible wider survey developments on improving the quality of our statistical outputs.

2. Phased removal of dependency on legacy systems on which both household finance statistical production and core deliveries are based, with implementation of improved modelling methodology where needed.

3. Strategic pipeline automation and harmonisation of household income estimates across core income and expenditure outputs and deliveries, incorporating initial developments.

4. Routine review of wealth methodology, to include collection and modelling approaches.

5. Embed admin-based estimates of income within suite of core household finance outputs, extending to both before and after housing costs, and operationalising initial improvements for use of administrative data to improve survey-based estimates.

2028/29

1. Publication of updated core household finance statistics, which embed strategic developments and strengthen compliance against the Code of Practice for Statistics.

2. Publish official accredited income and expenditure statistics with improved harmonisation allowing further cross-cutting analysis.

3. Achieve designation from the OSR for the Admin-based income estimates (ABIS) as official accredited statistics and fully compliant with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

4. Assess progress of quality recovery plan and agree resourcing for future development.