Index of Services, UK: October 2025

• Services output was estimated to have no growth (0.0%) in the three months to October 2025, compared with the previous three months to July 2025. 

• 7 of the 14 sectors showed growth in the three months to October 2025, with the main positive contributing sector being "real estate activities" (up 0.4%).

• 7 of the 14 sectors showed a decline in the three months to October 2025, with the main contributor being "professional, scientific and technical activities" (down 1.6%).

• Monthly services output was estimated to have decreased by 0.3% in October 2025; this follows a rise of 0.2% in September 2025 and a fall of 0.1% in August 2025.

• There were monthly decreases in 8 of the 14 sectors in October 2025; the largest negative contribution came from "wholesale and retail trade" (down 1.4%); the largest monthly industry decrease came from "computer programming" (down 3.6%), which was the largest contributor to the monthly fall in "information and communication" (down 1.2%).

• There were monthly increases in 6 of the 14 sectors in September 2025; the largest positive contribution came from "human health activities" (up 0.6%).

All data related to the Index of Services are available on our Related data page.

Response rates for October 2025

The response rates for October 2025 were 71.2%, based on forms returned. This accounted for 84.3% 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.

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 publishes data for October 2025 for the first time, with no previous periods open for revision. 

Non-market human health activities data source update

There are revisions to general government volume output estimates for Industry 86 ("human health activities") from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 onwards. While these partly reflect source data revisions, the largest impact comes from incorporating improved estimates of acute care output, based on unpublished data provided by NHS England.

This vintage of data comprehensively accounts for missing data and cost-weights activity. This is consistent with our annual benchmark in a way not possible with the published Hospital Episode Statistics Monthly Activity Report (HES MAR) data previously used.

The October 2025 estimates for the non-market human health activities output published in this release will incorporate these new data source changes for October 2025 only. However, the rest of these revisions will be captured in the upcoming Quarterly National Accounts: July to September 2025 bulletin on 22 December 2025,which has an open period of Quarter 1 2024 to Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025. The revisions will then be implemented (back to January 2024) in the next IoS estimate for November 2025, publishing on 15 January 2026.

Restarting of Producer Prices publications

Following the restart of monthly business prices publications on 22 October 2025, business prices data with corrected chain-linking methods and updated historic weights have been used in the IoS dataset for producer price indices (PPI), import prices indices (IPI), export price indices (EPI), and service producer price indices (SPPI) for July, August, September and October 2025 in this release. The quarterly SPPI estimates are splined to months for use in IoS calculations.

These updates to business prices data will be incorporated in IoS in line with our national accounts revisions policy.

Further information on the chain-linking error and the impact of methodological changes in the producer prices dataset are detailed in our Impact of correction to chain-linking methodology used in Producer Price Indices and Services Producer Price Indices: October 2025 article published on 22 October 2025.

Seasonal adjustment

The monthly estimates of IoS are seasonally adjusted. Seasonal adjustment is the process of removing the variations associated with the time of year, or the arrangement of the calendar, from a data time series.

IoS estimates, as for many data time series, are difficult to analyse using raw data because seasonal effects dominate short-term movements. Identifying and removing the seasonal component leaves the trend and irregular components.

The ONS uses the X-13-ARIMA-SEATS approach to seasonal adjustment. Seasonal adjustment parameters are monitored closely and regularly reviewed. For more information, please see our seasonal adjustment methodology.

In our IoS estimates, seasonal adjustment is applied at the industry level and the seasonally adjusted series are aggregated to create estimates by sector and total IoS output. As part of our quality assurance approach, residual seasonality checks are regularly completed by our time series analysis team on both the directly seasonally adjusted series, and also the indirectly derived aggregate time series.

This topic is explored further in our Assessing residual seasonality in published outputs article, updated on 30 September 2025.