Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 24 July 2025

• Overall retail footfall decreased by 1% in the week to 20 July 2025 compared with the previous week but remained broadly unchanged when compared with the equivalent week of 2024; high street footfall decreased by 2% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024, while retail park and shopping centre footfall both increased by 2% (MRI OnLocation).

• Total Revolut debit card expenditure decreased by 1% in the week to 20 July 2025 compared with the previous week but increased by 11% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (Revolut).

• The number of new online job adverts increased by 3% in June 2025 when compared with June 2024 (Textkernel). Section 3: Business and workforce.

• Economic uncertainty continued to be the most reported challenge affecting turnover for trading businesses in early July 2025 at 29%, broadly stable with early June 2025; for businesses with 10 or more employees, the most reported challenge was still the cost of labour at 36%, though this is down 4 percentage points over the same period (final results from Wave 136 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey).

• The number of seasonally adjusted daily UK flights decreased by 1% in the week to 20 July 2025 compared with the previous week but increased by 3% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (EUROCONTROL).

• The System Average Price of gas remained broadly unchanged in the week to 20 July 2025 compared with the previous week, while the System Price of electricity increased by 14% from 7.758p/Kwh to 8.814p/Kwh (Elexon, National Gas Transmission).

• The total number of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) for new dwellings across England and Wales increased by 10% in the week to 20 July 2025 compared with the previous week; it was 9% lower when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).

Notes:

1. Card spending over time is pushed upwards by the impacts of both inflation on value of transactions and cash-to-card conversion.  
2. Revolut adjustments to user count are at an aggregate level and as such, age bands may not adjust evenly. 
3. Indicators with SA in the title have been seasonally adjusted.  
4. Existing weekly Energy Performance Building Certificate (EPC) data can show sudden spikes when housing associations lodge multiple expired EPCs at once.

Textkernel online job adverts

The total number of new online job adverts increased by 3% in June 2025 compared with June 2024. It decreased by 9% when compared with May 2025. This large decrease is mainly because of a large source of adverts being unavailable from Textkernel deliveries for June 2025, so we recommend looking at the longer-term trend rather than last month.

The number of new online job adverts increased in 8 of the 12 regions (includes UK countries and English regions) in June 2025 when compared with June 2024. The largest percentage increase was in Northern Ireland, which grew by 17%.

Figure 2: The number of new online job adverts increased in 8 of the 12 regions (includes UK countries and English regions) in June 2025, compared with June 2024

Volume of new adverts, UK countries and English regions, January 2020 to June 2025, non-seasonally adjusted 

Notes:

1. New adverts represent the total number of adverts that have gone online in the month, calculated by counting the number of adverts that appear for the first time across the calendar month.   
2. For information on how adverts were assigned to geographical locations, see our Measuring labour demand volumes across the UK using Textkernel data user guide.

Download the data

1. Measuring labour demand volumes across the UK using Textkernel data user guide. 

The number of new online job adverts increased in 13 of the 26 occupation groups in June 2025 when compared with June 2024. The occupation group that saw the largest percentage increase in the volume of new adverts over this period was "Science, research, engineering and technology professionals", which saw an increase of 36%.   

The occupation group with the largest decrease was "Health professionals". This is the fourth month in a row that this occupation category has had one of the largest decreases when compared with the previous year.

This bulletin presents current estimates for Textkernel online job adverts in June 2025. In addition to our standardised breakdowns of region and two-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), this bulletin and accompanying dataset present estimates of new online job adverts by four-digit SOC for the first time.  

Details on the methods used to compile these estimates are available in our Measuring labour demand volumes across the UK using Textkernel data user guide. 

For further tables using similar methodology and sources by local authority and four-digit SOC, see our Labour demand by Standard Occupation Classification datasets. 

Our accompanying Textkernel new online job adverts dataset is available.

This section lists a selection of data available in this publication. Please note that because of our data sharing agreement with MRI onLocation, we are unable to provide a dataset for our footfall metric. For the full list of available datasets, please see our 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 estimates, which represent useful economic and social concepts.

Seasonal adjustment

Seasonal adjustment is the identification and removal of consistent and systematic variation in time series associated with the time of year. For more information on seasonal variation, and how we implement seasonal adjustment, see Section 2 of our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology article.

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.

We are developing how we collect and produce the data to improve the quality of these statistics. Find out more in our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology article.

Once the developments are complete, we will review the statistics with the Statistics Head of Profession. We will decide if the statistics are of sufficient quality and value to be published as official statistics, or if 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. If you would like to get in touch, please email realtime.indicators@ons.gov.uk.

Dataset release dates and intended release frequency

Latest release dates and intended release frequency of our associated datasets are available in this section. Please note that there may be some change to the intended release frequency for a variety of reasons, such as data availability. If you would like further information about any of these datasets, or previous release dates, please email realtime.indicators@ons.gov.uk.

Weekly data release

• Revolut spending on debit cards dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• Automotive fuel spending dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• Company incorporations, voluntary dissolutions and compulsory dissolutions dataset; updated 30 January 2025.

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• System Average Price of gas dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

Monthly data release

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 17 July 2025.

• Textkernel new online job adverts dataset; updated 24 July 2025.

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 17 July 2025.

• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 17 July 2025.

Quarterly data release

• Sales and jobs in small businesses dataset; updated 7 November 2024.

Strengths and limitations

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

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.

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.