UK trade in services by partner country experimental data: October to December 2018

• This release covers all the UK economy’s trade in services, presenting UK trade in services by 67 countries and 31 service types, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.

• Exports and imports of services were higher in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018 compared with Quarter 4 2017, by £2.6 billion and £4.4 billion respectively.

• The top five service types for exports and imports all increased in Quarter 4 2018 compared with the same quarter a year ago.

• Exports of services grew by £4.6 billion between 2017 and 2018, while imports of services grew by £10.6 billon, leading to a narrowing of the trade in services surplus.

• In 2018, the largest country by service type export was of other business services to the US, at £24.2 billion.

• In 2018, the largest country by service type import was of travel services from Spain, at £11.2 billion.

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; 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 third 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 4 (Oct to Dec) 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). To deliver at the pace required, the data are closely aligned to the balance of payments but are not fully consistent for 2016. 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.

Data in this release have been revised back to Quarter 1 2018 when compared with figures published in our previous Trade in services by partner country bulletin on 23 January 2019.

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. It is therefore recommended that comparisons are made with the same quarter a year ago or between years. We plan to develop these statistics to be seasonally adjusted in the future.

These data are our best estimates of bilateral UK trade flows, compiled following internationally agreed standards and using a wide range of robust data sources. However, in some cases alternative estimates of bilateral trade flows are available from the statistical agencies for those countries or through central databases such as UN Comtrade. Differences between estimates are known as trade asymmetries and are a known aspect of international trade statistics, affecting bilateral estimates across the globe, not just the UK.

We are heavily engaged in analysis of these asymmetries, developing strong bilateral relationships with other countries to understand, explain and potentially reduce them. We have published a series of analyses showing comparisons and the relative strengths of different estimates, which users may wish to reference to help them better understand the quality of our bilateral trade estimates.

Exports and imports of services were higher in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018 compared with the same quarter a year ago (Table 1). Exports increased by 3.5%, from £72.4 billion in Quarter 4 2017 to £75.0 billion in Quarter 4 2018. The value of imports increased by 11.4%, from £38.8 billion in Quarter 4 2017 to £43.2 billion in Quarter 4 2018.

Compared with the same quarter a year ago, exports to Asia saw the largest increase of the geographical regions, rising from £10.3 billion in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2017 to £11.7 billion in Quarter 4 2018 (Figure 1). This was driven primarily by increasing exports of intellectual property, telecommunications, computer and information services, and other business services, which rose by £0.4 billion each.

Exports to the EU saw the second-largest rise of the geographical regions between Quarter 4 2017 and Quarter 4 2018, increasing by £0.8 billion. Insurance and pension services, and travel services both increased by £0.3 billion.

The only geographical regions that saw a decrease between Quarter 4 2017 and Quarter 4 2018 were non-EU Europe, falling by £0.1 billion, and Australasia and Oceania, which remained broadly flat.

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.

The US remains the UK’s largest services export partner, accounting for £17.0 billion, or 22.7% of all UK exports of services in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018 (Table 2). The value of exports to Germany was the second-highest at £5.0 billion, with exports to the Netherlands being the third-highest at £4.7 billion.

Exports to Germany and the Netherlands were equivalent to 6.7% and 6.2% of total UK services exports, respectively. Taken together, UK exports to the top three countries accounted for 35.6% of all UK services exports in Quarter 4 2018.

The top five export service types all saw an increase in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018 compared with Quarter 4 2017 (Table 3). Comparing Quarter 4 2018 with the same quarter a year ago, other business services and travel both had the largest increase in exports of £0.7 billion each. Of the top five export service types, the largest percentage rise of exports when comparing Quarter 4 2018 with Quarter 4 2017 is from telecommunications, computer and information services, increasing by 10.8%, followed by a 7.2% rise in travel services being exported.

Other business services, which includes research and development, professional and management consulting services, and technical, trade-related and other business services not included elsewhere, continues to be the largest export service type, accounting for 30.7% of total services exports in Quarter 4 2018.

Figure 2 shows the value for each component of other business services in Quarter 4 2018. Other business services not included elsewhere accounted for 35.2% of total exports of other business services, followed by legal, accounting, management consulting and public relations, which made up 30.8%.

Legal, accounting, management consulting and public relations is a subcomponent of professional and management consulting services.

In Quarter 4 2018, the US was the largest export partner for other business services, accounting for 31.1%. The £7.2 billion export of other business services to the US was driven primarily by £3.1 billion of exports of professional and management consulting services.

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 60.0% of total exports of other business services.

Compared with the same quarter a year ago, imports from the EU saw the largest increase among geographical regions of £2.4 billion, rising from £18.8 billion in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2017 to £21.2 billion in Quarter 4 2018 (Figure 4). This was driven primarily by imports of other business services, which increased by £1.2 billion. Of this, France had the largest increase of imports of other business services, accounting for £0.6 billion.

Imports from Asia saw the second-largest increase of £1.4 billion in Quarter 4 2018, compared with Quarter 4 2017. Services imports from Japan increased by £0.5 billion, driven by imports of financial services, which rose by £0.3 billion.

The only geographical regions that saw a decrease between Quarter 4 2017 and Quarter 4 2018 were Australasia and Oceania, falling by £0.1 billion, and Africa, which remained broadly flat.

Of the top 10 countries, the US and France saw the largest value increase in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018 compared with the same quarter a year ago, both rising by £0.8 billion. Japan saw the largest percentage increase in services imports to the UK of 43.5% between Quarter 4 2017 and Quarter 4 2018 (Table 4).

The US remains the UK’s largest import partner, accounting for £7.7 billion, or 17.9%, of total imports of services. The value of imports from France was the second-highest, with imports from Spain the third-highest. Imports from France and Spain were equivalent to 8.9% and 7.9% of total UK services imports respectively, as shown in Table 4. The top three countries accounted for 34.7% of all UK services imports.

The top five import service types all saw an increase in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018 compared with Quarter 4 2017 (Table 5). Comparing Quarter 4 2018 with the same quarter a year ago, other business services had the largest increase in imports of £1.6 billion, followed by financial services, which rose by £1.3 billion over the same period.

Travel continues to be the largest import service type, accounting for 27.2% of total service imports in Quarter 4 2018.

In Quarter 4 2018, Spain was the largest import partner for travel services, accounting for 19.8% of total travel services imported. The £2.3 billion imports of travel to Spain was predominantly from £2.0 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 47.9% of total imports of travel services (Figure 5).

The UK exported £283.4 billion of services in 2018, an increase of £4.6 billion compared with 2017. The largest service type exported in 2018 was other business services at £81.3 billion (Figure 6), which represents 28.7% of total UK exports. This was followed by financial services at £61.4 billion, which represents 21.7% of total UK exports.

Table 6 shows the UK’s top 10 export trading partners in 2018. Analysing UK trade in services by country, the US is the UK’s top export trading partner, with £63.2 billion exported to the US in 2018. This represented 22.3% of all UK exports. This was followed by Germany, who the UK exported £18.9 billion to in 2018.

Table 7 shows the top 10 country by service type exports. In 2018, the largest country by service type export was other business services to the US, at £24.2 billion. This represented 8.5% of total UK exports. This was followed by exports of financial services, also to the US, at £14.6 billion, and exports of other business services to Ireland, at £10.2 billion. These were the three largest exports transactions by a substantial margin, with the next largest country by service export to France of financial services at £6.1 billion.

The UK imported £176.3 billion of services in 2018, an increase of £10.6 billion compared with 2017. The largest service type imported in 2018 was travel services at £56.8 billion (Figure 7), which represented 32.2% of total UK imports. This was followed by other business services at £40.8 billion, which represented 23.1% of total UK imports.

Table 8 shows the UK’s top 10 import trading partners in 2018. Analysing UK trade in services by country, the US is the UK’s top import trading partner, with £30.4 billion imported in 2018. This represented 17.3% of all UK imports. This was followed by Spain, with £15.7 billion imported in 2018.

Table 9 shows the top 10 country by service type imports. In 2018, the largest country by service type import was travel services from Spain, at £11.2 billion. This represented 6.4% of total UK imports. This was followed by imports of other business services from the US at £11.0 billion. These were the two largest import transactions by a substantial margin. The third-largest country by service type import was travel services from the US, at £5.6 billion.

The US appears the most frequently in the top 10 country by service type imports seen in Table 9. As shown before, the US is the UK’s largest import partner, with the UK importing a wide range of US services. Whereas, imports from Spain, our second-largest import partner, are mainly comprised of travel services, which make up 71.7% of all the UK’s imports from Spain.

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 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 8: UK trade in services with the rest of the world, exports and imports, 2018

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 9: UK exports, 2018

Figure 10: UK imports, 2018

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. Most of our data sources are supplied with geographical breakdowns to enable the production of trade in services statistics by country and service type. However, if the data source does not include geographical breakdowns the data are estimated using a closely aligned source.

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

The UK trade methodology webpages 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