Index of Services, UK: January 2025

• Monthly services output was estimated to have increased by 0.1% in January 2025; this follows an increase of 0.2% in November 2024 and an increase of 0.4% in December 2024, and is the third consecutive month of growth in monthly services output.
• There were monthly increases in 6 of the 14 sectors in January 2025; the largest positive contribution came from “administrative and support service activities” (up 1.9%).
• The monthly increase in output was partially offset by monthly decreases in 7 of the 14 sectors in January 2025; the largest negative contribution came from “accommodation and food service activities” (down 2.4%).
• Services output growth in the three months to January 2025 was estimated to have increased (0.4%), when compared with the three months to October 2024.
• In the three months to January 2025, the majority of sectors showed growth with the main positive contribution sectors being “human health and social work activities” (up 0.9%), “financial and insurance activities” (up 0.6%) and “other service activities” (up 3.4%).
• The three main negative contributing sectors offsetting the rise in the three months to January 2025 were “education” (down 0.5%), “administrative and support service activities” (down 0.3%) and “arts, entertainment and recreation” (down 1.2%).

Response rates for January 2025

The response rates for January 2025 were 72.2% based on forms returned. This accounted for 88.5% of total turnover coverage of the sample population. For further information, see our Current and historical Monthly Business Survey (MBS) (services) response rates dataset.

Data sources and collection

The Index of Services (IoS) is compiled using data from several different sources (share of overall economy based on latest gross value added (GVA) weights). These include the:

• Office for National Statistics (ONS) MBS (34.9%)    
• ONS Retail Sales Inquiry (4.8%)    
• ONS Government Expenditure (15.3%)    
• ONS Households’ Expenditure (11.2%)    
• ONS Finance Expenditure (8.0%)    
• ONS Households and non-profit institutions serving households (1.9%)
• other (3.6%)

The MBS data are published alongside this release in our MBS turnover of services industries dataset.

Data relating to the retail industry are broadly comparable with our Retail sales, Great Britain: January 2025 bulletin, published on 21 February 2025.

For further information on what is included within “other”, please see our Gross domestic product (GDP(o)) data sources catalogue.

The percentage of each data source is based on their gross value added weight. Our IoS methods and sources pages provide more information on the data that underpin these statistics; of particular note is our GDP(o) data sources catalogue.

Value Added Tax (VAT) data are also included for small and medium-sized businesses to help inform estimates. For more information, see our VAT turnover data in National Accounts: background and methodology.

Quality and methodology

The data reported in IoS bulletins and datasets are estimates that are subject to uncertainty, for example, sampling variability and non-sampling error. For more information on these, see Section 2 of our Uncertainty and how we measure it for our surveys methodology.

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Index of Services Quality and Methodology Information.

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 Services

In line with the National Accounts Revision Policy, this release gives data for January 2025, with no previous periods open for revision.