Energy, goods and services used by UK businesses: 2023

• Intermediate consumption, or expenditure on energy, goods and services used as inputs to UK business processes, showed a slight increase between 2022 and 2023.
• Energy expenditure was still an important cost to businesses, particularly the category including petrol and diesel.
• The products with the highest expenditure (excluding energy related ones) included: "computer programming, consultancy and related services", "construction of buildings", "advertising and market research" and "renting, buying or selling property"; these groupings made up just under a fifth of total intermediate consumption.

The product values in the dataset are constrained to Annual Business Survey estimates of intermediate consumption, where equivalent industries are available.

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 and publication was delayed. Data for these years are now being published alongside revisions to the 2021 and 2022 datasets. However, caution should still be taken with industries – or products – affected by coronavirus – for example, tourism, accommodation and 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 the 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 is to drop Section K in future – please contact 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.