Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 11 January 2024

• In December 2023, 69% of trading businesses reported that they were able to get the materials, goods or services they needed from within the UK, up two percentage points from November 2023; in contrast, 3% were unable to get the materials, goods or services they needed from within the UK, broadly stable over the same period.

• The percentage of businesses with 10 or more employees that reported global supply chain disruption in December 2023 remained broadly stable from November 2023, at around 5%.

• One in five (20%) businesses reported they are using or intending to use increased home working as a permanent business model; more than half (54%) of those businesses reported this is for improved staff wellbeing.

• Fewer than 1 in 10 (7%) businesses experienced worker shortages in late December 2023; this is down one percentage point from mid-December and down from the 12% reported in late December 2022.

• More than 1 in 10 (11%) businesses reported that employee hourly wages had increased in December 2023 compared with November 2023.

The data presented in this bulletin are the final results from Wave 99 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), which was live from 27 December 2023 to 7 January 2024. 

The final response rate for Wave 99 was 19.8% (7,845 responses). The average response rate in previous waves has been approximately 26%. The Wave 99 response rate was lower than usual because of the Christmas period, bank holidays and the survey being live for a shorter period of time. This means that the estimates in this release are subject to more uncertainty than usual, and therefore comparisons to historical waves should be taken with caution.

The data reported within BICS bulletins and datasets are estimates that are subject to uncertainty, for example, sampling variability and non-sampling error. Further information on quality is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey Quality and Methodology Information (QMI), and we regularly update confidence intervals associated with the survey questions. 

Experimental single-site weighted regional estimates up to Wave 92 are available in our Business insights and impact on the UK subnational single-site economy: November 2023 article.

Figure 1: Headline figures from the Business Insights and Conditions Survey

Notes

1. For presentational purposes, some response options have been combined, excluded or both.
2. Data are plotted in the middle of each wave.

The percentage of businesses that reported they were trading in late December 2023 was 94%, with 85% fully trading and 9% partially trading (for example, trading with reduced hours or staff numbers). Meanwhile, 4% of businesses reported "temporarily paused trading" and 2% reported "permanently ceased trading" as their business's trading status.

Access to microdata 

You can access the microdata for Waves 1 to 98 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) through the Secure Research Service (SRS). The BICS microdata for each wave are released on a rolling basis in the week following the publication of each wave. The microdata are made confidential and do not disclose information on any specific business. 

Only researchers accredited under the Digital Economy Act, as explained on the UK Statistics Authority website are able to access data in the SRS. You can apply for accreditation through the Research Accreditation Service (RAS). You need to have relevant academic or work experience and must successfully attend and complete the assessed Safe Researcher Training.  

To conduct analysis with microdata from the SRS, a project application must be submitted to the Research Accreditation Panel (RAP), as explained on the UK Statistics Authority website. To access the SRS, you must also work for an organisation with an Assured Organisational Connectivity agreement in place.

Reporting unit

The reporting unit is the business unit to which questionnaires are sent. The response from the reporting unit can cover the enterprise as a whole, or parts of the enterprise identified by lists of local units.

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI, which was updated on 24 January 2022. 

The BICS is voluntary, and the results are experimental. More information is available in our Guide to experimental statistics.

The results are based on responses from the voluntary fortnightly BICS, which captures businesses' views on financial performance, workforce, prices, trade and business resilience. The Wave 99 survey was live for the period 27 December 2023 to 7 January 2024. For full details of the survey questions used, see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey questions: 27 December 2023 to 7 January 2024 article.

Coverage

The BICS sampling frame is based on the same industries as our Monthly Business Survey (MBS). The MBS covers the UK for production industries only, and Great Britain for construction, retail and services industries. The MBS is an important input to the output measure of gross domestic product (GDP), which includes monthly GDP. 

For detailed information on the industries covered by the MBS and BICS, see our GDP(o) data sources catalogue. The following are some industries that are excluded from MBS and BICS: 

• agriculture 
• oil and gas extraction 
• energy generation and supply 
• public administration and defence 
• public provision of education and health 
• finance and insurance 

For more information on the methodology of producing the BICS, such as weighting, please see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI.

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI.