Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 27 February 2025

• Overall retail footfall increased by 6% in the week to 23 February 2025 from the previous week, coinciding with school half-term holidays for some parts of the UK; this was 5% higher than in the equivalent week of 2024 (MRI OnLocation).
• In the week to 23 February 2025, total Revolut debit card spending decreased by 1% compared with the previous week; when compared with the equivalent week of 2024, total Revolut debit card spending increased by 8% (Revolut).
• Initial findings show that 35% of trading businesses reported that they expect staffing costs to rise over the next three months, this is a 10-percentage point increase from expectations during November 2024 (initial results from Wave 127 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey).
• The System Average Price (SAP) of gas decreased by 14% to 3.914 pence per kilowatt hour (p/kWh) in the week to 23 February 2025 compared with the previous week, while the System Price of electricity decreased by 36% to 7.428p/kWh; when compared with the equivalent week of 2024, System Average Price of gas and System Price of electricity increased by 100% and 28%, respectively. (Elexon, National Gas Transmission).
• In the week to 23 February 2025, the number of ship visits to major UK ports decreased by 4% and the average number of daily UK flights increased by 3% compared with the previous week; when compared with the equivalent week of 2024, ship visits to major UK ports decreased by 6%, while the number of daily flights increased by 8% (exactEarth, EUROCONTROL).
• The total number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) in the week to 23 February 2025 for new dwellings across England and Wales decreased by 21% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024; for existing dwellings, it decreased by 9% (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).

Notes:

1. Card spending over time is higher because of 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.

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.

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.

Once we have made these developments, 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

• UK credit and debit card payments; updated 5 December 2024.

• Revolut spending on debit cards dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

• Automotive fuel spending dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

• Company incorporations, voluntary dissolutions and compulsory dissolutions dataset; updated 30 January 2024.

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

• System Average price of gas dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 27 February 2025.

Monthly data release

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 20 February 2025.

• Textkernel new online job adverts dataset; updated 20 February 2025.

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 17 October 2024.

• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 6 February 2025.

Quarterly data release

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

Discontinued data series

• Transactions at Pret A Manger dataset; final update 31 October 2024.

• Online job advert estimates dataset; final update 24 October 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.