Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 2 November 2023

• Nearly two-thirds (63%) of businesses reported some form of concern for their business when looking ahead to November 2023; this is broadly stable with October 2023 and remains the lowest percentage reported since the question was introduced in February 2022.

• More than four in five (81%) trading businesses with 10 or more employees reported that they were able to get the goods they needed from within the UK in September 2023.

• In September 2023, 5% of businesses with 10 or more employees experienced global supply chain disruption; this has slowly fallen from 20% in September 2022, and is the lowest percentage reported since this question was introduced in December 2021.

• The proportion of businesses that reported experiencing worker shortages in late October 2023 remained unchanged from late September 2023, at 10%; however, this has slowly fallen from the 13% of businesses experiencing worker shortages in late May 2023.

• Less than 1 in 10 (9%) businesses reported that their employees' hourly wages had increased in September 2023 compared with August 2023; this has also slowly fallen from the 13% reported in May 2023.

• A higher proportion of businesses were affected by industrial action in September 2023 compared with August 2023; 7% of businesses were affected, up from the 5% reported in August 2023.

The data presented in this bulletin are the final results from Wave 94 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), which was live from 16 to 29 October 2023.

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 74 are available in our Business insights and impact on the UK subnational single-site economy: February 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.

Download the data

The percentage of businesses that reported they were trading in late October 2023 was 96%, with 87% fully trading and 9% partially trading (for example, trading with reduced hours or staff numbers). Meanwhile, 3% of businesses reported "temporarily paused trading" and 1% reported "permanently ceased trading" as their business's trading status.

Access to microdata

You can access the microdata for Waves 1 to 93 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, 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 94 survey was live for the period 16 to 29 October 2023. For full details of the survey questions used, see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey questions: 16 to 29 October 2023 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 BICS QMI report.

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.