UK trade in services by partner country experimental data: July to September 2018

• This release covers all the UK economy's trade in services, presenting UK trade in services by 67 countries and 31 service types, with non-seasonally adjusted quarterly data.
• UK exports of services decreased from £72.0 billion in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2018 to £71.6 billion in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018.
• UK imports of services increased from £43.4 billion in Quarter 2 2018 to £50.0 billion in Quarter 3 2018.
• Imports of services were higher in Quarter 3 2018 compared with the same quarter a year ago, while exports of services saw a small drop.
• The European Union (EU) remained the UK’s largest trading partner for both exports and imports of services in Quarter 3 2018, while the US was the largest trading partner when considering individual countries.
• Imports of travel services has seen a 41.7% increase in Quarter 3 2018 compared with Quarter 2 2018, with Spain being the UK's largest trading partner of travel services; note that these data are not seasonally adjusted.

The UK trade in services data have been produced as part of planned improvements to our trade statistics described in Section 3.3 of the trade development plan. In response to user needs, one of our main priorities is to publish detailed trade figures across more dimensions than we do currently; for example, across industries, geographic trade partners and service types. A large focus for the trade development plan is also making improvements to the quality of the trade figures.

This is the second of our more detailed quarterly services releases containing 31 service types by 67 countries. While we currently publish service type by partner country annually in Pink Book, we have increased the level of detail available and produced quarterly data for Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2016 to Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018.

We have made significant quality improvements to the UK trade in services by partner country experimental dataset partly through fuller use of the improved quarterly country breakdown derived from the increased and optimised quarterly International Trade in Services Survey (ITIS). In order to deliver at the pace required, the data are closely aligned to the balance of payments but are not fully consistent. Improvements that have been made for Quarter 1 2018 to Quarter 3 2018 will be included within the next Balance of payments release in March. The improvements in the 2016 data will be incorporated into Pink Book 2019, the first opportunity to revise this time period within the wider accounts.

Estimates derived from the International Passenger Survey (IPS) are used to help measure exports and imports of travel services. The IPS has recently transferred data collection from paper forms to tablet computers. Analysis of IPS data has detected no discontinuities as a result of the change in data collection mode, therefore we have replaced forecasts used in recent periods with IPS data within headline trade estimates. Please see our Travel and tourism release for more information about IPS.

Data in this release have been revised back to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2016 when compared with figures published in our previous Trade in services bulletin on 24 October 2018.

Data are provided in as much detail as possible without disclosing the details of any individual companies, however, this means some figures have been suppressed to protect confidentiality.

You are advised to be cautious when interpreting changes between quarters given that the series are not seasonally adjusted and few data points are presented.

The value of UK exports of services decreased from £72.0 billion in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2018, to £71.6 billion in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018, a decrease of 0.6%, as shown in Table 1.

The value of UK imports of services increased by 15.3% over the same period, from £43.4 billion in Quarter 2 2018 to £50.0 billion in Quarter 3 2018.

Imports of services were higher in Quarter 3 2018 compared with the same quarter a year ago while exports of services saw a small drop. Exports decreased by 0.6%, from £72.0 billion in Quarter 3 2017 to £71.6 billion in Quarter 3 2018. The value of imports increased by 5.1% from £47.6 billion in Quarter 3 2017 to £50.0 billion in Quarter 3 2018.

The value of services exports for Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018 decreased to all geographical regions except Asia, and Australasia and Oceania (Figure 1). The largest decrease between Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2018 and Quarter 3 2018 was for exports to the EU, which dropped by £0.4 billion; from £30.0 billion to £29.6 billion. This was driven primarily by decreases in exports of other business services not included elsewhere to the Netherlands and Ireland.

Other business services not included elsewhere includes distribution services (water, steam, gas, petroleum) and of electricity where provided separately from transmission, air conditioning supply, placement of personnel, security and investigative services, translation and interpretation, photographic services, building cleaning, real estate services to businesses, and the remaining business services that cannot be classified to any of the business services within the other business services category.

Exports to Asia saw an increase of £0.4 billion in Quarter 3 2018 compared with Quarter 2 2018, driven by personal travel services to all Asian countries. Non-EU Europe, America and Africa all saw decreases in exports of less than £0.3 billion.

It is important to note that these estimates for UK services exports are not seasonally adjusted. Therefore, some variation from quarter to quarter will be explained by the time of the year, where trade in some services could be more common than at other times of the year.

Compared with the same quarter a year ago, exports to the EU saw the largest decrease of the geographical regions, dropping from £30.0 billion in Quarter 3 2017 to £29.6 billion in Quarter 3 2018. This was driven primarily by a decrease in exports of intellectual property to Belgium.

Exports to Asia increased by £0.5 billion in Quarter 3 2018 compared with Quarter 3 2017. Services exports of architectural, engineering, scientific and other technical services to Residual Gulf Arabian countries accounted for £0.2 billion of this increase.

The value of services exports to the UK’s top 10 export destinations all saw differences of less than £0.3 billion between Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018 compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2018.

The US remains the UK’s largest services export partner, accounting for £15.9 billion, or 22.3% of all UK exports of services in Quarter 3 2018, as shown in Table 2. The value of exports to Germany was the second-highest at £4.8 billion, with exports to France the third-highest destination at £4.4 billion. Exports to Germany and France were equivalent to 6.7% and 6.1% of total UK services exports, respectively. Taken together, UK exports to the top three countries accounted for 35.1% of all UK services exports.

Other business services, which includes research and development, professional and management consulting services, and technical, trade-related and other business services not included elsewhere, was the largest export service type accounting for 28.3% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018 of total services exports (Table 3). Exports of other business services saw a 3.0% decrease in Quarter 3 2018 compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2018.

Financial services exports, the second-largest export type, has also dropped between Quarter 2 2018 and Quarter 3 2018, from £16.0 billion to £14.5 billion.

Of the top five service types, exports of travel saw the largest increase of 15.8% in Quarter 3 2018 compared with Quarter 2 2018.

Figure 2 shows the value for each component of other business services in Quarter 3 2018. Other business services not included elsewhere accounted for 35.5% of total exports of other business services, followed by legal, accounting, management consulting and public relations, which made up 30.1%.

Legal, accounting, management consulting and public relations is a sub-component of professional and management consulting services.

In Quarter 3 2018, the US was the largest export partner for other business services, accounting for 30.3%. The £6.1 billion export of other business services to the US was driven primarily by £2.5 billion of legal, accounting, management consulting and public relations.

Ireland was the second-largest export partner for other business services, followed by the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany, as shown in Figure 3. The top five export partners accounted for 58.9% of total exports of other business services.

Imports of services increased in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018 compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2018 for all geographical regions. Of all the geographical regions presented in Figure 4, imports from the EU increased the most over the quarter from £22.0 billion to £25.7 billion, a rise of £3.7 billion. This increase was driven by imports of personal travel services from Spain of £1.2 billion. It is important to note that these estimates for UK services imports are not seasonally adjusted. Therefore, some variation from quarter to quarter will be explained by the time of the year, where trade in some services could be more common than at other times of the year.

Imports of travel covers goods and services provided to UK residents during visits abroad of less than one year, excluding students and medical patients who remain residents of their country of origin even if the length of stay in another economy is more than a year.

Services imports from the Americas saw the second-largest increase in Quarter 3 2018; from £9.2 billion to £10.6 billion. The increase of £1.4 billion was due mainly to imports of travel services from the US.

Compared with the same quarter a year ago, imports from the EU saw the largest increase of £1.5 billion, rising from £24.2 billion in Quarter 3 2017 to £25.7 billion in Quarter 3 2018. Services imports from Spain and France saw the largest increase, both of £0.4 billion.

Imports from Asia saw the second-largest increase of £0.7 billion in Quarter 3 2018 compared with Quarter 3 2017. Services imports from Hong Kong increased by £0.3 billion, going from £0.4 billion in Quarter 3 2017 to £0.7 billion in Quarter 3 2018.

The value of imports to the UK from the UK’s top 10 import destinations increased in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018 compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2018. The only exceptions were imports from Germany, India and Jersey, which decreased by very small amounts.

The US remains the UK’s largest import partner, accounting for £8.2 billion, or 16.5% of imports of services. The value of imports from Spain was the second-highest, with imports from France the third-highest. Imports from Spain and France were equivalent to 10.5% and 8.2% of total UK services imports respectively, as shown in Table 4. The top three countries accounted for 35.1% of all UK services imports.

When compared with the same quarter a year ago, Germany saw a decrease in services imports to the UK of 15.9% in Quarter 3 2018. This was driven primarily by falls in imports of direct insurance of £0.2 billion.

Of the top 10 countries, Spain and France saw the largest value increase compared with the same quarter a year ago, both rising by £0.4 billion.

Travel was the largest service type import accounting for 40.7% of total imports in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018 (Table 5). Imports of travel services has seen a 41.7% increase in Quarter 3 2018 compared with Quarter 2 (July to Sept) 2018.

Users should note that these data show the seasonal trends throughout the year, with the majority of imports of travel seen in Quarter 2 and Quarter 3. Travel covers goods and services provided to UK residents during visits abroad of less than one year, excluding students and medical patients who remain residents of their country of origin, even if the length of stay in another economy is more than a year. Transport to and from the UK is excluded from travel and shown as passenger services under transportation.

In Quarter 3 2018, Spain was the largest import partner for travel services, accounting for 19.8% of total travel services imported. The £4.0 billion imports of travel to Spain was predominantly from £3.8 billion of personal travel.

The US was the second-largest import partner of travel services, followed by France, Italy and Greece. The top five import partners accounted for 47.8% of total imports of travel services (Figure 5).

We have produced some interactive tools to help explore the data.

Data are provided in as much detail as possible without disclosing the details of any individual companies, however, this means that some figures have been suppressed to protect confidentiality. The interactive will show no data available if the data are zero, suppressed or unavailable at this level of detail.

Select a country by hovering over it or using the drop-down menu.

Figure 6: UK trade in services with the rest of the world, exports and imports, 2017

What about trade in a particular service type?

Use our interactive tools to understand UK trade of a particular service type.

Select a service type from the drop-down menu, or click through the levels to explore the data.

Figure 7: UK services exports, 2017

Figure 8: UK services imports, 2017

What questions do you have about the new data? Do you find these tools helpful? Please email trade@ons.gov.uk with your comments.

Trade in services covers export and import activity across 12 categories:

• manufacturing
• maintenance and repair services
• transportation
• travel
• construction
• insurance and pension
• financial
• intellectual property
• telecommunications services
• other business services
• personal, cultural and recreational
• government

Trade in services statistics are derived from a variety of sources, though the International Trade in Services (ITIS) Survey and the International Passenger Survey (IPS) form the bulk of these data.

Detailed methodological notes are published in the UK Balance of Payments, The Pink Book 2018.

The UK trade methodology web pages have been developed to provide detailed information about the methods used to produce UK trade statistics.

The UK trade Quality and Methodology Information report contains important information on:

• the strengths and limitations of the data and how it compares with related data
• uses and users of the data
• how the output was created
• the quality of the output including the accuracy of the data