Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 1 September 2022

• The System Average Price (SAP) of gas rose by 30% in the week to 28 August 2022 to a new peak level for this year, this is 8% higher than the previous peak seen on 10 March 2022 (National Grid).

• In late August 2022, 21% of businesses with 10 or more employees reported they were on a variable rate for electricity, while 10% reported their fixed prices would expire by 31 December 2022; for gas, these percentages were 15% and 6%, respectively (initial results from Wave 64 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS)).

• Business and workforce metrics were mostly down in the latest period, with an 8% decrease in company incorporations and a very slight fall in total online job adverts; the value of sales by small businesses in July fell 10% from the previous month, which was the largest monthly fall since April 2020 when it decreased by 24% (Adzuna, Companies House, Xero).

• Consumer behaviour indicators showed mostly increased activity in the latest week, with rises in UK seated diners (up by 4 percentage points) and “retail and recreation” and “transit station” location visits, by 3% and 2%, respectively; meanwhile UK credit and debit card purchases remained broadly unchanged (OpenTable, Google Mobility, Bank of England CHAPS data).

• Heathrow Air Passenger numbers were up in July 2022, with an increase of 6% when compared with the previous month; this was 82% of the volume when compared with July 2019 (Civil Aviation Authority).

• Transport indicators show a varied picture this week, with UK daily flights broadly unchanged from the previous week and traffic camera activity for “cars” and “vans” in London both down by 3% (EUROCONTROL, Transport for London).

Notes:

1. Revolut adjustments to user count are at an aggregate level and as such, age bands may not adjust evenly.
2. Users should note that card spending over-time is pushed upwards by the impacts of both inflation on value of transactions, and cash-to-card conversion.
3. Users should take caution when interpreting week-on-week falls in Road Traffic (DfT) data, due to the comparison period including the latest summer bank holiday on 29 August 2022.

Users should note that this section lists a selection of the data available with this publication. For the full list of available datasets please see the accompanying dataset page.

Real-time indicator

A real-time indicator provides insights into economic activity using close-to-real-time big data, administrative data sources, rapid response surveys or Experimental Statistics, which represent useful economic and social concepts.

Information on the methodology used to produce the indicators in this bulletin is available in the Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology.

These statistics have been produced to provide timely indicators of the effect of developing world events on the UK economy and society, using close-to-real-time big data, administrative data sources, rapid response surveys or Experimental Statistics.

The data presented in this bulletin are reviewed and refreshed on a regular basis. Indicators are swapped in and out of the publication based on their suitability and availability.

UK coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions

A full overview of coronavirus restrictions for each of the four UK constituent countries can be found:

• coronavirus in England
• coronavirus in Scotland
• coronavirus in Wales
• coronavirus in Northern Ireland

These restrictions should be considered when interpreting the data featured throughout this bulletin.

Seasonality

Seasonal fluctuations are likely to be present in many of these indicators so caution must be applied when interpreting changes in series that are not seasonally adjusted.