Index of Production, UK: July 2024

• Monthly production output was estimated to have decreased by 0.8% in July 2024; this follows a 0.8% increase in June 2024.

• The monthly output decrease in July 2024 resulted primarily from a decrease of 1.0% in “manufacturing”, supported by smaller contributing decreases in “electricity and gas” (down 1.7%) and “water supply and sewerage” (down 0.7%); these rises were partially offset by a rise in “mining and quarrying” (3.9%).

• The monthly reduction in manufacturing output in July 2024 saw decreases in 7 of its 13 subsectors and only one subsector increasing by more than 1%.

• The largest negative contributions to manufacturing output in July 2024 came from the “manufacture of transport equipment” and “manufacture of machinery and equipment”; these decreased by 2.3% and 4.7%, respectively.

• The largest positive contribution to manufacturing growth in July 2024 came from “manufacture of wood and paper products and printing”, which increased by 1.6%.

• Production output for the three months to July 2024 was estimated to have decreased by 0.1% compared with the three months to April 2024; weakness in “manufacturing” (down 0.3%) and “mining and quarrying” (down 1.4%) was partially offset by strength in “electricity and gas” (2.1%) and “water supply and sewerage” (0.9%).

All data related to the Index of Production (IoP) are available on our Related data page.

The Index of Production (IoP) uses data from a variety of sources. It is calculated by taking turnover and removing the effect of price changes, or by using direct volume estimates. 

Most of these data are collected as “turnover values” through the Monthly Business Survey (MBS). In addition, direct volume series are collected by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), and the International Steel Statistics Bureau (ISSB) for steel industries.

The MBS is fully online. Business owners can log on from any location and submit their data at an appropriate time.

From January 2018, Value Added Tax (VAT) data have also been included across 64 production industries for small- and medium-sized businesses.

More information is available in our VAT turnover data in National Accounts: background and methodology article.

A comprehensive list of the IoP source data can be found in our Gross domestic product (GDP) data sources catalogue.

Response rates for July 2024

For July 2024, MBS response rates were 75.8%, based on forms returned. This accounted for 83.9% of total turnover coverage of the sample population. For further information, see our current and historical MBS (production) response rates dataset.

Quality and methodology

The data reported in IoP bulletins and datasets are estimates that are subject to uncertainty, such as sampling variability and non-sampling error. More information is available on Section 2 of our Uncertainty and how we measure it for our surveys web page.

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Index of Production, UK QMI. This was last updated on 7 June 2024.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2014. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled “accredited official statistics”.

Revisions to Index of Production

In line with the National Accounts Revisions Policy, this release provides data for July 2024 for the first time, with no other periods open for revision.

Blue Book 2024 publication update

The 2024 UK Annual National Accounts, also known as Blue Book 2024, incorporate several methodological changes focused on data for recent years, along with the addition of more recent survey and administrative information.

On 7 August, we published our Blue Book 2024: advanced aggregate estimates article to give users details of the impact of the 2024 UK National Accounts update on current price and chained volumes measure estimates of GDP from 1997 to 2022.

This article provides estimates for 2022 for the first time, using the supply and use tables (SUTs) framework, as well as improving the estimates for 2020 and 2021 with more recent data. We have also updated the base year to 2022, after holding this fixed since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The next Quarterly National Accounts release on 30 September 2024 will incorporate these revisions in our official estimates in line with our National Accounts Revisions Policy.

These revisions will then be incorporated into our IoP estimates in our release on 11 October 2024.

Until the Blue Book 2024 data are incorporated into our IoP estimates, our monthly GDP estimates will continue to have a reference and base year of 2019.