Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology

Since March 2020, we have been collecting and publishing faster data on the UK economy and society. These real-time indicators are official statistics in development and are available in our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators bulletin.

All of our indicators are developed in response to current world events and are produced quickly to provide relevant, timely insights.

The Office for Statistics Regulation, on behalf of the UK Statistics Authority, has reviewed them against several important aspects of the Code of Practice for Statistics and regards them as consistent with the Code's pillars of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value.

This article details the methodology for the data collection, aggregation, analysis and presentation of our real-time indicators.

These indicators are created using rapid response surveys, novel data sources and innovative methods. Each indicator aligns with one of four categories: consumer behaviour; business and workforce; energy and housing; or transport.

Our current indicators by category are as follows.

Consumer behaviour

• Automotive fuel spending: weekly data from aggregated, anonymised card spending data and road fuel price statistics (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
• Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount: monthly anonymised and aggregated Direct Debit data detailing average Direct Debit transaction amounts and Direct Debit failure rate (Vocalink and Pay.UK)
• National retail footfall: daily indices of customer activity in retail destinations at a UK level (MRI OnLocation and Springboard)
• Opinions and Lifestyle Survey: initial findings from our monthly ONS Opinions and Lifestyle Survey to assess public opinions on household spending and cost of living
• Revolut debit card transactions: weekly card spend data of debit card users from Revolut, a financial technology company with over 9 million users in the UK

Business and workforce

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies: weekly HR1 forms submitted by employers to the Insolvency Service's Redundancy Payments Service
• Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS): a voluntary twice-monthly business survey to deliver real-time information to help assess the impact of issues and events affecting UK businesses and the economy
• Online job advert estimates: monthly online job advert indices covering the UK job market, using aggregated job advert data from the Textkernel website
• Sales and jobs in small businesses: monthly data taken from Xero, a global cloud-based accounting software platform with over 1 million small business subscribers in the UK
• Value Added Tax (VAT): monthly diffusion indices and new VAT reporters using data from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) VAT returns

Energy and housing

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs): weekly data of EPCs for new and existing dwellings in England and Wales, taken from the EPC register held by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)
• Renter affordability for new tenancies: monthly rent affordability data calculated as the proportion of monthly income spent on rent for new tenancies as provided by Dataloft
• System Average Price (SAP) of gas: daily and seven-day rolling average changes in gas prices, using the SAP of gas from the National Grid
• System Price of electricity: daily and seven-day rolling average changes in electricity prices, using the system price of electricity from Elexon

Transport

• Shipping indicators: weekly shipping data from exactEarth using the UN Global Platform
• UK flight data: daily flights data from EUROCONTROL comprising international arrivals and departures to and from the UK (including Crown dependencies) and domestic UK flights, but excluding overflights (flights that pass over UK territory)

New indicators and data are included as and when they become available. Equally some indicators may stop being updated. The relevant methodology information listed on this page is regularly updated to reflect these changes. The datasets for indicators which are no longer updated, are still available in our related data pages of our bulletin.

Each indicator included in our publication has been assessed for its eligibility to form part of the real-time indicators suite. This section details the overarching eligibility criteria for each of our real-time indicators. This is regularly updated to ensure our indicators are timely and the data meets user needs. 

Assessment of eligibility includes an indicator's ability to demonstrate: relevance to monthly, quarterly or annual gross domestic product (GDP); the time delay which accompanies sourcing the most up-to-date data; and whether the data sourced are a valid and timely measure for an economic industry of interest.

Some of our indicators are seasonally adjusted. This is to reduce the impact of seasonal variations on our estimates. How our estimates are seasonally adjusted is detailed in our technical user summary.

The subsequent sections of this methodological article detail the specific methodology for each of our real-time indicators, as well as the strengths and limitations for each indicator. Links to more detailed methodology pages are provided where available. Please note, this article will be updated regularly as new indicators are added, or methodological changes are made to existing indicators.

Automotive fuel spending insights

This indicator measures "Estimated quantity of automotive fuel demand per transaction", "Average UK retail pump prices" and "Average road fuel sales". Data are sourced from anonymised and aggregated card spending data and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).

Estimated quantity of automotive fuel demand per average transaction is used to isolate real demand after adjusting for growth in fuel prices. This indicator captures how consumer demand for fuel per visit changes in response to changing fuel prices at pumps over time.

Average UK retail pump prices for petrol and diesel is an indicator compiled from six automotive fuel retailers (DESNZ).

Average road fuel sales (litres) are included in this series to provide a UK representative overview of automotive fuel trends and are updated monthly (DESNZ).

The data are presented as year-on-year growth to reduce the impacts of seasonality in card spending data. Data are available as weekly and monthly estimates. As official statistics in development, these data are subject to revisions as our methodology and systems are refined. Information on the methodology, strengths and limitations of these data are available in our Behavioural impact of rising automotive fuel prices on UK consumers Quality and Methodology Information (QMI.

Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount

This indicator measures "Average Direct Debit transaction amount" and "Direct Debit failure rate". The aggregated and anonymised dataset is made available to us by Pay.UK and Vocalink. They operate and provide the infrastructure for the UK's retail interbank systems, through which over 4 billion transactions are processed annually. This includes over 70% of household bills.

Our "Average Direct Debit transaction amount" and "Direct Debit failure rate" measures are presented across five categories: energy (electricity and gas); water; fitness facilities; mortgages; and loans. Transactions attributed to these categories are determined by keyword association or associated Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007 codes. Additionally, overall totals are presented for both average Direct Debit transaction amount and Direct Debit failure rate. These include, but are not limited to, the five categories listed here.

Average Direct Debit transaction amount is the mean monetary value (pounds sterling) of a transaction calculated as the following:

All average Direct Debit transaction values presented for a given category are indexed to the average Direct Debit transaction value in 2023 for that category.

Direct Debit failure rate is the proportion of attempted Direct Debit transactions that fail because of insufficient funds, calculated as the following:

For each of the five listed categories, these calculations are done using the number of transactions, and their values, within each category.

Additional information on the indicator can be found in our Direct Debits data reveal fresh economic insights blog post.

National retail footfall

MRI OnLocation footfall data measure the volume of activity entering a retail park or shopping centre, or within a town centre. It is not a recording of footfall into stores, but into retail destinations.

Data are captured via a network of automated counters located in high streets, shopping centres and retail parks across the UK. The counters employ technology that identifies humans within a defined "zone" and logs each human as a number in a file. The counters operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and data are captured continuously. The technology is highly accurate and able to identify individual humans even where there are very large volumes of people.

Year-on-year footfall estimates compare the same day rather than date; for example, Tuesday 3 June 2025 is compared with Tuesday 4 June 2024. If the comparator year was a leap year, this will be two days ahead. Notably, no adjustments are made for bank holidays. For example, as the date of Easter changes each year, the data will be comparing Easter Sunday in 2025 with a Sunday in 2024 that is not Easter.

MRI OnLocation footfall data include footfall within three main types of retail destination – high streets, retail parks and shopping centres. These retail destinations are defined in Section 8: Glossary. The data do not include footfall in leisure and sports venues, conference venues, transport interchanges, motorway service stations, art galleries, museums and historic monuments. Our measure of overall footfall is defined as the sum of the average footfall in each destination type (high streets, retail parks and shopping centres), weighted by their respective footfall volumes.

Opinions and Lifestyle Survey

The Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) covers topics relating to people's experience of daily life and events, and currently includes questions about what people feel are important issues, their health, well-being and experiences of increases in the cost of living. It regularly includes questions on a range of other topics such as attitudes towards climate change and artificial intelligence; topics can be requested by government departments.

The survey covers residents of Great Britain who are aged 16 years and over. Survey questions are often added, removed or amended to reflect changing circumstances and analytical priorities.

More information on the strengths and limitations of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) data are available in the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Revolut debit card transactions

This indicator provides insight into the spending patterns of UK consumers on debit cards. Data are provided by Revolut, which is a financial technology company with over 9 million users within the UK financial payment sector.

Revolut is a granular and timely data source, presented on a per-account basis to account for Revolut's high user-growth over time. This enables comparisons to be made on a like-for-like basis, over a longer data time series.

Please note, Revolut customers tend to be younger and more metropolitan than the average UK consumer, so spending may not be representative of the overall UK macroeconomic situation.

Our Revolut spending by sector series presents data that comprise aggregated and mutually exclusive Merchant Category Codes. These classify businesses dependent upon their primary business category and are as follows:

• retail spending (including clothing, department, mixed retail, services and household stores)
• food and drink (including supermarkets, convenience and other food providers)
• entertainment (including membership clubs, cinemas, ticketed events, sports, galleries and tourist attractions)
• pubs, restaurants, and fast food (including pubs, nightclubs, restaurants and fast food)
• travel (including airlines, hotels and motoring)
• automotive fuel (including service stations and automated fuel dispensers)

Users should note that card spending over time is pushed upwards by the effects of both inflation on value of transactions and cash-to-card conversion where there is a shift away from cash spending towards card spending within the financial payment ecosystem. We make no adjustments for these considerations. "Betting" expenditure is fully omitted from the data as its inclusion would lead to volatility, affecting user interpretation. 

The monthly series is calculated by aggregating the daily data for each day of the month, rather than the seven-day rolling average of each day. Thus, monthly data do not match aggregated seven-day rolling average data. Where data are indexed, they are indexed to the 2023 average of that series.

Information on the methodology, strengths and limitations of these data are available in our Using Revolut cardholder data to derive real-time indicators of consumer spending Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Advanced notification of potential redundancies

This indicator presents the number of intended redundancies from filed HR1 forms. HR1 forms are used by employers to notify the Insolvency Service's Redundancy Payments Service of potential redundancies. They are only required when firms wish to make 20 or more redundancies.

HR1 form submissions can include contractual changes, changes to pensions, or employees being transferred to new sites. As we are only concerned with permanent dismissals, we apply an automated cleaning process to remove cases that are not permanent dismissals.

Firstly, all cases with fewer than 20 proposed dismissals are excluded from the data as HR1 forms should only be submitted if the employer intends to make 20 or more dismissals.

Secondly, a case is excluded if the reason for the dismissals includes any of the following words: pension, contractual, terms and conditions, transfer, move, or TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)).

Users should note that where data are indexed, they are indexed to the 2023 average of that data series. Additional information on the methodology used for this indicator, along with the associated strengths and limitations, are available in our Developing an indicator of potential redundancies using Insolvency Service data methodology.

Business Insights and Conditions Survey

The Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) collects timely information on the effect of challenges facing the economy and other events on UK businesses. Data are collected through a twice-monthly online questionnaire from a sample of approximately 39,000 businesses, capturing businesses' experiences on topics such as:

• financial performance

• workforce

• prices

• trade and business resilience

Respondents are asked for their experiences at the time of answering the questionnaire, or over a stated reference period, which is either the last two weeks or last month. Survey questions are often added, removed or amended to reflect changing circumstances and analytical priorities. More information on the strengths and limitations of the BICS data are available in the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Textkernel online job advert estimates

This indicator uses Textkernel online job advert data, collected from approximately 90,000 job boards and recruitment pages via comprehensive web-scraping software. The data present monthly new live online job advertisements, broken down by occupation and by region, from February 2018. Estimates are classified based upon the information included in the job advert.

These estimates were produced to align to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) framework, and replace our previous real-time online job advert estimates provided by Adzuna.

Even though our Textkernel data can be used to show changes in labour demand, they are official statistics in development (as explained in our guide) and should be used only as an indicator of changing labour demand. As such, as adverts are not the same as vacancies, we advise caution when comparing these estimates with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Vacancy Survey, which are accredited official statistics. Please refer to the user guides for more information.

More information on the methodology used to compile these estimates, and their strengths and limitations, is available in our Measuring labour demand volumes across the UK using Textkernel data user guide.

Sales and jobs in small businesses

Data on sales and jobs in small businesses are taken from Xero, a global cloud-based accounting software platform with over 1 million small business subscribers in the UK.

Sales are measured based on the face value of invoices issued by firms within each month (including via apps attached to the Xero account). Subscriber base changes are accounted for by measuring sales growth in one specific month using the sample of firms that also operated in the previous year.

Jobs are measured by the number of unique employees of a business who are issued a payslip in a month. One individual is counted as one "payslip" in a particular month, if they worked at least one hour in that specific month. The sample of small businesses is restricted based on the employment size band, and erroneous payslips or those identified for non-wage purposes are excluded. Percentage change in payslips is calculated using the weighted average of within-firm year-on-year growth in jobs. The calculation accounts for subscriber changes and shutdowns.

Users should note that this measure did not capture employees who were on furlough, for a whole month or longer, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Further, Xero's definition of sales and jobs does not align with definitions of official estimates of turnover and employment.

The source data are publicly available through the Xero Small Business Insights programme.

Value Added Tax flash estimates

Value Added Tax (VAT) turnover estimates are used in our UK National Accounts, where they are used to supplement survey data for industries covered by the Monthly Business Surveys. This is for both production and services, and for the construction industry.

These estimates are used as one of our business and workforce indicators, as they provide timely and real-time estimates for business turnover.

Our VAT flash estimates are based on VAT returns received by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) within the first seven calendar days following the end of each month. These returns are used to produce an early indicator of turnover trends.

The flash estimates are constructed using returns from businesses that report VAT monthly, meaning the dataset reflects turnover that occurred during the preceding calendar month. For example, the June flash publication includes returns received between 1 and 7 June, which report on business activity in May.

Quarterly or annual reporting businesses are not included, as they do not file returns every month and are not part of the flash estimate pipeline. As a result, the stated month in the VAT flash series closely aligns with the actual month of economic activity for the included businesses. For more information on our VAT flash estimate reporting periods, please see Section 2 of our Value Added Tax methodology article.

Currently, VAT indicators are currently split into two sections: diffusion indices and reporting behaviours.

Diffusion indices

The diffusion indices are an aggregate measure used to track whether most firms are reporting an increase or decrease in turnover in their VAT returns. They are calculated as the percentage of firms with increasing turnover minus the percentage with decreasing turnover.

Diffusion indices are presented for both turnover and expenditure, with growth rates analysed as month-on-month, and month on a year ago. Estimates presented are non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) and seasonally adjusted (SA).

The total diffusion indices for both turnover and expenditure are a sum of individual sector diffusion indices, which are individually weighted by the proportion they contribute to total gross domestic product (GDP). Weighting the individual industry indices prevents a single industry from contributing disproportionately, or skewing, the average reported change of the total diffusion index.

The seasonally adjusted diffusion index of each industry is multiplied by that industry's weight (the industry contribution to GDP) and divided by the sum of all industry weights (total GDP).

All industries are weighted based on the Blue Book values of our gross value added industry weight time series dataset. The Blue Book and industry weightings are updated annually. At present, our flash estimates are weighted in accordance with the Blue Book 2024 values of our gross value added industry weight time series dataset. As services have the greatest contribution, they have a greater contribution to the total index.

All indices are constructed to lie between 1 and negative 1. An index of 0.1 means that 10% more firms reported an increase in turnover compared with the previous month than those reporting a decrease in turnover. Conversely, an index of negative 0.1 means that 10% more firms reported a decrease in turnover compared with the previous month. An index of 0.0 means that the same number of businesses saw an increase in turnover as saw a decrease.

We have used the standard deviations of the seasonally adjusted series to calculate upper and lower 95% confidence limits. These are presented in the bulletin to help users identify statistically significant results in the diffusion indices.

Reporting behaviours

Reporting behaviours cover counts of all VAT reporters, regardless of reporting period or record type. These are broken down by section and grouped into sections based on the VAT unit's primary Standard Industrial Classification (SIC).

New reporters are counts of VAT reporters that have not previously submitted a VAT return, broken down by section.

Record type is all VAT reporters, broken down by whether the business is paying tax, reclaiming tax, re-inputting to pay or reclaim tax (correcting a mistake prior to submitting the return), or submitting a replacement to pay or reclaim tax (correcting a mistake after submitting the return).

For more methodological detail as to how the VAT flash estimates are produced, please see our Faster indicators of UK economic activity: Value Added Tax returns article.

Energy Performance Building Certificates

This indicator presents Energy Performance Building Certificate (EPC) data, which contains information on the energy efficiency of a property. An EPC is a requirement when a property is built, sold or rented in England and Wales. All new buildings, or conversions of existing buildings, require an EPC once construction has been completed.

Data for our real-time EPC indicator are taken from the EPC register held by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). In accordance with regulations, MHCLG cannot alter data that, after an assessment, has been lodged on the register.

To note, an EPC is valid for 10 years and can be reused as many times as required during this period. Therefore, where a property holds a valid EPC and is sold or let, it will not require a new EPC and will not appear in the data.

Additionally, the EPC figures used in our real-time indicators release includes cancelled or not for issue reports and multiple reports on a single Unique Property Reference Number if an individual building has more than one certificate.

These administrative data are subject to continuing quality investigation and improvement. They have been released because they have been judged to be of immediate value to interested parties and to encourage user feedback.

The weekly data will differ from daily and monthly figures published on the Landmark Information website because of overlaps of weekly figures (that is, Week 27 includes five days in July as well as days in June).

Further technical information on data quality and technical notes are available in the Energy Performance of Buildings Certificates quarterly statistics collection on GOV.UK.

A consolidated glossary of all the terms related to Energy Performance of Buildings Certificates is available on GOV.UK.

Renter affordability for new tenancies

Data are provided by Dataloft, a housing market economics consultancy that covers approximately 40% of all private rentals in the UK. This is based on Census 2021 estimates of private rental dwelling stock, and assumptions of tenancy length.

The data presented are an affordability ratio, calculated as a proportion of new renters' income that is spent on rent. If the affordability ratio increases, it reflects a worsening affordability as tenants are having to spend a higher proportion of their income on rent.

This is only calculated using new tenancies, from approximately 30,000 new tenancies and 50,000 new tenants each month. Income is defined as adjusted person-level gross incomes, as stated by renters, and is calculated based on each individual renter (not households). The data from each month are presented in the Real-time indicator bulletin in the following month.

These figures exclude guarantors, and tenants with a stated annual income lower than £10,000 or higher than £500,000. Additionally, these figures are not consistent with those in our Private rental affordability bulletin. This is because they are calculated with different data coverage and using different methods, and may not be representative of the UK market as a whole.

For example, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data produce estimates using both new and existing lets, whereas Dataloft estimates are for new lets only. Caution is advised when inferring trends in the rental market, as these estimates reflect affordability at snapshots in time.

System Average Price of gas

Data are collected from the Data Item Explorer from the National Grid. The daily System Average Price (SAP) determines the futures price and is therefore used to indicate supply constraints and demand pressures. For the Real-time indicators statistical bulletin, the actual day value (pence per kilowatt hour, p/kWh) and the seven-day rolling average (p/kWh) of these values are reported. These data are accessed weekly, in a Monday-to-Sunday format.

Data are recorded on a Sunday and published in the Real-time indicators bulletin the following Thursday. These data can be subject to extreme within-day trading prices, which can lead to skewing of actual traded prices. While these data reflect spot prices on the day, traders can opt for future contracts where the buyer and the seller agree the market-determined price for gas for a future date.

Other markets also exist for wholesale gas trading in Great Britain. Despite this, the scope of SAP is sufficient to provide a representation of supply constraints and demand pressures in the gas industry.

System price of electricity

Data for the system price of electricity are collected from the Elexon data portal. The system price of electricity is used to settle the difference between the contracted generation or consumption of electricity, and the actual amount of electricity that was generated or consumed. Where companies have generated more, or less, electricity than the quantity of electricity that customers consume, the difference is balanced by the National Grid Transmission System, which buys or sells electricity equal to the difference.

The system price of electricity reflects the cost incurred by the National Grid in this process. More information about the system price of electricity and how prices are calculated can be found on the Elexon website.

The system price of electricity is calculated at a half-hourly interval, which we average over a 24-hour period to calculate the daily average (pence per kilowatt hour, p/kWh). This is then averaged over a shifting seven-day period, to calculate the seven-day rolling average (p/kWh). Data are recorded on a Sunday and are published in the Real-time indicators bulletin the following Thursday. Prices may change after initial reporting because of a submission, or resubmission, of data by the National Grid.

Additionally, the fluctuations in electricity prices presented here do not directly affect consumer bills. This is because the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) takes wholesale price into consideration when determining the cost of energy. Ofgem publishes the official UK wholesale price on a monthly basis, which is available on the Ofgem website.

Shipping indicators

Our weekly real-time shipping indicators detail the estimated shipping activity across the UK at several major ports. Ships are recorded entering one of the monitored ports, and are classified as either a "cargo and tanker ship" or "other". These values are summed for each port, and as a total across the UK. More quality and methodology information is available in Faster indicators of UK economic activity: more timely and relevant shipping indicators.

Users should note that there was a comprehensive overhaul of our data collection and processing systems, resulting in a level shift across the entire data time series when the data were re-released in November 2023. While the overarching trends seen in the dataset have largely remained consistent with previous releases, we strongly advise against drawing direct comparisons between data from releases after November 2023 and before June 2023.

UK flight data

These data are daily flight figures from the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL). Daily flight numbers for the UK alongside other countries are available in EUROCONTROL's dashboard. EUROCONTROL is a pan-European, civil-military organisation dedicated to supporting European aviation. Its Aviation Intelligence and Performance Review Unit provides independent collection and validation of air navigation services performance-related data and intelligence gathering.

The flights data include international arrivals and departures to and from the UK (including Crown dependencies) and domestic UK flights but excludes overflights (flights that pass over UK territory). They capture all flight movements that operate under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR), where the pilot uses instruments in the flight deck to control, guide and adjust the plane. This includes commercial flights carrying passengers and cargo, as well as non-commercial flights such as private and military flights.

Data from EUROCONTROL do not include information on the volume of passengers or cargo carried on UK flights. Especially in the context of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, flights might not be operating at full capacity and therefore trends in passengers and cargo will differ from trends in flights presented here.

Official statistics in development

Our indicators 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.

Dataset frequency

The publication frequency of our associated data is updated in our weekly Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators bulletin. Please note, there may be some changes to the intended release frequency of some indicators for a variety of reasons, such as data availability. As of June 2025, our intended release frequencies are as follows.

Weekly

• Revolut spending on debit cards

• automotive fuel spending

• company incorporations, voluntary dissolutions and compulsory dissolutions

• advanced notification of potential redundancies

• System Average Price of gas dataset

• system price of electricity dataset

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC)

• weekly shipping indicators

• daily UK flights

Monthly

• Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount

• Textkernel new online job adverts

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates

• renter affordability for new tenancies

Quarterly data release

• sales and jobs in small businesses dataset

Strengths and limitations

Each Real-time indicator has 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. All data are reviewed and refreshed on a regular basis, with indicators swapped in and out of the publication, based on 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. Many of our indicators have been seasonally adjusted to remove these fluctuations.

For more information on seasonal variation, and how we implement seasonal adjustment, see our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators technical article.

Overall footfall

The overall footfall is the sum of the average footfall in each destination type (high streets, retail parks and shopping centres) weighted by their respective footfall volumes.

High street

High street refers to a town centre rather than a shopping centre (defined previously). It is the central part or main business and commercial area of a town, comprising the high street, which is the traditional site for most shops, banks and other businesses.

Retail park or shopping park

A retail park or shopping park is a space wholly owned and managed by a single landlord, solely comprising retail warehouse units, and generally comprising a minimum of 30,000 square feet of retail space. Retail parks have a minority of units occupied by traditional high street non-food retailers, while in a shopping park most units are occupied by high street non-food retailers.

Shopping centre

A shopping centre is a space, fully owned and managed by a single landlord, which can be fully or partially enclosed, or completely open but does not form part of the public highway. A shopping centre is distinguished from a retail park by a smaller unit size.

New live online job advertisements

The total number of adverts that appear online for the first time in the calendar month.

Small businesses

Defined by Xero as organisations with fewer than 20 employees.

Non-seasonally adjusted (NSA)

Data have not been transformed and systematic variation in time series associated with the time of year may be present.

Seasonal adjustment is the identification and removal of consistent and systematic variation in time series associated with the time of year.

Seasonally adjusted (SA)

Seasonal adjustment is the identification and removal of consistent and systematic variation in time series associated with the time of year.