Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 15 January 2026

• Total UK retail footfall decreased by 8% in the week to 11 January 2026, compared with the previous week, and decreased by 7% when compared with the equivalent week of 2025; this coincides with adverse weather conditions (BT Active Intelligence).

• The seasonally adjusted Total Direct Debit failure rate increased by 1% in December 2025, compared with the previous month, and increased by 11% when compared with December 2024; the seasonally adjusted average transaction amount remained broadly unchanged, compared with the previous month, but increased by 3% when compared with December 2024 (Pay.UK and Vocalink).

• In our latest Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN), around 3 in 5 adults reported that their cost of living had increased in December 2025 compared with one month ago (62%), an increase from 57% in December 2024; among those who said their cost of living had increased, 9 in 10 reported that the price of their food shop had increased (92%) and 2 in 3 reported increases in gas or electricity bills (68%) (initial findings for December 2025 from our OPN, publishing on 23 January 2026).

• The seasonally adjusted number of firms reporting increased turnover in December 2025 was 2% higher than those reporting decreased turnover; this is an increase of 8 percentage points on November 2025 (HM Revenue and Customs Value Added Tax returns).

• When asked about business turnover during December 2025, around a third (32%) of businesses currently trading reported that their turnover had decreased when compared with the previous month, up 4 percentage points from November; 46% of businesses reported their turnover stayed the same (initial results from Wave 148 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey).

• The System Price of electricity increased by 32% while the System Average Price (SAP) of gas decreased by 2%, in the week to 11 January 2026, compared with the previous week; both the System Price of electricity and the SAP of gas decreased, by 38% and 37%, respectively, when compared with the equivalent week of 2025 (Elexon, National Gas Transmission).

• The seasonally adjusted number of new vehicles registered in the UK increased by 4% in December 2025, compared with the previous month, and increased by 3% when compared with December 2024 (The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT)).

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. Indicators with "SA" in the title have been seasonally adjusted. Indicators with "NSA" in the title have not been seasonally adjusted but do present seasonality. All other indicators do not present seasonality.
3. Existing Energy Performance Building Certificate (EPC) data can show sudden spikes when housing associations lodge multiple expired EPCs at once.

This section lists a selection of data available in this publication. 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 and our technical article Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: seasonal adjustment.

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 changes to the intended release frequency of each dataset 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 27 November 2025.

• Automotive fuel spending dataset; updated 8 January 2026.

• UK retail footfall dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• System Average Price (SAP) of gas dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 4 December 2025.

• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

Monthly data release

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• Textkernel new online job adverts dataset; updated 18 December 2025.

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• SMMT vehicle registration and production dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

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.