Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 3 April 2025

• Total Revolut debit card spending increased by 11% in the week to 30 March 2025, compared with the previous week, with notable spending increases of 29% in Services and 9% in both Health and Entertainment; total debit card spending remained broadly unchanged, when compared to the equivalent week of 2024 (Revolut).

• Overall retail footfall increased by 6% in the week to 30 March 2025, compared with the previous week, and was 5% higher, compared with the equivalent week of 2024; high street, retail park and shopping centre footfall each increased by 6% when compared with the previous week (MRI OnLocation).

• More than one in six (18%) businesses reported that they are currently using some form of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in late March 2025, which is broadly stable with late December 2024, but up 8 percentage points since the question was first introduced in late September 2023; for businesses with 250 employees or more, this increased to 31%, which is up 13 percentage points compared with September 2023 (final results from Wave 129 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey).

• The System Price of electricity decreased by 39% to 6.501 pence per kilowatt hour (p/kWh) in the week to 30 March 2025, compared with the previous week; the System Average Price (SAP) of gas decreased by 5% to 3.347 p/kWh (Elexon, National Gas Transmission).

• The seasonally adjusted number of daily UK flights decreased by 2% in the week to 30 March 2025, compared with the previous week, and decreased by 3% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (EUROCONTROL).

• The number of ship visits to major UK ports increased by 3% in the week to 30 March 2025, compared with the previous week, but decreased by 1% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (exactEarth).

• The total number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) increased by 22% for new dwellings in the week to 30 March 2025, compared with the previous week, but decreased by 5% for existing dwellings; total EPCs for new and existing dwellings increased by 30% and 25%, respectively, when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).

Notes

1. Card spending over time is increased 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.

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 3 April 2025.

• Automotive fuel spending dataset; updated 3 April 2025.

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

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 3 April 2025.

• System Average price of gas dataset; updated 3 April 2025.

• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 3 April 2025.

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 3 April 2025.

• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 3 April 2025.

• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 3 April 2025.

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

Monthly data release

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 13 March 2025.

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

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 27 March 2025.

• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 13 March 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.