Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 25 September 2025

• The number of new online job adverts decreased by 8% in August 2025 compared with July 2025 but remained broadly unchanged when compared with August 2024 (Textkernel).

• When asked in September 2025, 17% of trading businesses had no cash reserves saved, a 5 percentage point increase from September 2024; 35% of businesses responded that they had cash reserves to last between one and six months, a 9 percentage point fall from September 2024 (initial results from Wave 141 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey).

• Total Revolut debit card expenditure remained broadly unchanged in the week to 21 September 2025 compared with the previous week but increased by 14% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (Revolut).

• The total number of ship visits to major UK ports decreased by 4% in the week to 21 September 2025 compared with the previous week, and decreased by 10% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (exactEarth).

• The seasonally adjusted number of daily UK flights decreased by 1% in the week to 21 September 2025 compared with the previous week but increased by 1% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (EUROCONTROL).
• The System Average Price (SAP) of gas decreased by 1% in the week to 21 September 2025 compared with the previous week, but the System Price of electricity increased by 13% over the same period (National Gas Transmission, Elexon).
• The total number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) for new dwellings in England and Wales increased by 10% in the week to 21 September 2025, and increased by 33% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).

Latest indicators at a glance

Notes:

1. New adverts represent the total number of job adverts that have gone online per month, calculated by counting the number of adverts that appear for the first time across the calendar month.

2. The sum of English regions and UK countries in this chart does not sum to the overall total of online job adverts. This is because of the omission of unknown locations from this chart.

3. For information on how adverts were assigned to geographical locations, see our Measuring labour demand volumes across the UK using Textkernel data user guide.

New online job adverts

The total number of new online job adverts decreased by 8% to 696,000 in August 2025 compared with July 2025. This is in line with the usual seasonal pattern over the summer holiday period but remained broadly unchanged when compared with August 2024.

The number of new online job adverts decreased in 13 of the 26 occupation groups in August 2025 when compared with August 2024. For the remaining 13 occupation groups, 12 increased and 1 remained broadly unchanged.

The occupation groups that saw the largest percentage decreases were "Health professionals" and "Customer service occupations", which decreased by 19% and 15%, respectively, when compared with August 2024. The largest percentage increases over this period were "Business, media and public service professionals" and "Science, research, engineering and technology professionals", which increased by 16% and 13%, respectively.

Figure 2: The number of new online job adverts decreased in 7 of the 12 UK countries and English regions in August 2025 when compared with August 2024

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

Notes:

1. New adverts represent the total number of job adverts that have gone online per month, calculated by counting the number of adverts that appear for the first time across the calendar month.

2. Please note that the sum of English regions and UK countries in this chart does not sum to the overall total of online job adverts. This is because of the omission of unknown locations from this chart.

3. For information on how adverts were assigned to geographical locations, see measuring labour demand volumes across the UK using Textkernel data user guide. .

The number of new online job adverts decreased in 7 of the 12 regions (includes UK countries and English regions) in August 2025 when compared with August 2024.

The largest percentage decrease was in the West Midlands, decreasing by 5%, while the largest percentage increase was in London, increasing by 5%.

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.

Our accompanying Textkernel new online job adverts dataset is available. For further tables using similar methodology and sources by local authority and four-digit Standard Occupation Class (SOC), see our Labour demand volumes by SOC datasets.

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 25 September 2025.

• Automotive fuel spending dataset; updated 11 September 2025.

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 25 September 2025.

• System Average price of gas dataset; updated 25 September 2025.

• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 25 September 2025.

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 25 September 2025.

• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 25 September 2025.

• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 25 September 2025.

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

Monthly data release

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 11 September 2025.

• Textkernel new online job adverts dataset; updated 25 September 2025.

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 18 September 2025.

• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 11 September 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.