Energy, goods and services used by UK businesses: 2022

• Intermediate consumption, or expenditure on energy goods and services used as inputs to UK business processes, rose by just over a fifth between 2021 and 2022. 
• Expenditure on energy-related products increased between 2021 and 2022; spend on electricity rose 36% while the product that includes "gas supply from mains" rose 50%.
• The products with the highest expenditure (excluding energy-related ones) included: "construction of buildings", "renting, buying or selling property", "advertising and market research", "computer programming, consultancy and related services" and "rental and leasing services"; these groupings made up around a fifth of total intermediate consumption.

The Annual Purchases Survey product values in this dataset are constrained to Annual Business Survey estimates of intermediate consumption (where equivalent industries are available), as shown in our Non-financial business economy, UK (Annual Business Survey): 2022 results bulletin.

Data collections for the Annual Purchases Survey ran for 2019 and 2020 but, because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there were high levels of non-response and internal resource issues, which meant processing was deprioritised. While data for these years are being worked on, they have not yet been published because of quality concerns. Results from 2021 have now been revised, informed to some extent by the 2022 data collection, to try to address some of the quality issues resulting from data gaps in the 2019 to 2020 period.

However, caution should still be taken with particular industries affected by coronavirus – for example, tourism, accommodation, catering.

As in previous years, industry groupings that contain a mix of different types of businesses should also be treated with caution. Survey methodology assumes a level of similarity between companies in the same groupings. These "catch-all" groupings within the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) can give volatile product patterns depending on which companies happen to be selected. Some such groupings include:

• division 32 – Other manufacturing
• division 96 – Other personal service activities
• division 74 – Other professional, scientific and technical activities

Since 2020, there have been changes to the questionnaire to allow for the reporting of wood and wood products under energy consumption. Caution should therefore be taken when comparing with earlier releases of the datasets for the following product groupings of Eurostat's Statistical Classification of Products by Activity (CPA):

• 01 – products of agriculture, hunting and related services
• 02 – products of forestry, logging and related services
• 06 – crude petroleum and natural gas
• 16 – wood and products of wood and cork, except furniture; articles of straw and plaiting materials
• 19 – coke and refined petroleum products and other potentially related categories

For SIC Section K Financial and insurance activities – industries 64 to 66, as with other business surveys, there are reporting issues with industry groupings that contain trusts because the survey is based on the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). Trusts are not listed on the IDBR and therefore the coverage of the financial industries is problematic. Our intention, subject to further consultation, is therefore to remove Section K from future surveys – please email us at abaps@ons.gov.uk if you have views on this.

Official statistics in development

These statistics are labelled as "official statistics in development". Until September 2023, these were called "experimental statistics". Read more about the change in our Guide to official statistics in development.

These statistics are based on information from the Annual Purchases Survey. We are developing how we collect and produce the data to improve the quality of these statistics.

Once the developments are complete, we will review the statistics with the Statistics Head of Profession. We will decide whether the statistics are of sufficient quality and value to be published as official statistics, or whether further development is needed. Production may be stopped if they are not of sufficient quality or value. Users will be informed of the outcome and any changes.

We value your feedback on these statistics. Contact us at abaps@ons.gov.uk.