Blue Book 2026: impact on GDP and main components

• Estimates of UK gross domestic product (GDP) in this year's annual UK National Accounts (Blue Book) now include, for the first time, improved measurement of the service sector based on data from the Annual Survey of Goods and Services (ASGS), as well as improved estimates of actual and imputed rental.

• The changes in Blue Book 2026 lower the level of nominal GDP in earlier years and raise it in later years, with the 2024 level now estimated to be 0.5% higher; we now estimate the UK economy to be £2,905 billion in 2024.

• Average annual volume growth is slightly higher between 1998 and 2024, though it remains at 1.8%; average quarterly growth remains at 0.5% to one decimal place.

• Annual volume GDP growth in 2024 is revised up by 0.1 percentage points from 1.0% to 1.1%; growth in 2023 was also revised up 0.1 percentage points.

• Cumulatively small changes to recorded growth over this 26-year period add 2.5% to the level of GDP by 2024; cumulative volume growth from 1997 to 2024 is now estimated at 61.7%, revised up from the previous estimate of 59.2%.

• ASGS has increased the share of gross value added (GVA) provided by services in most years; in 2024, services GVA is up to 81.2% from 80.4% previously, with the biggest contributions from information and communication, and administrative and support services.

• As a result of these changes, net trade makes the largest upwards contribution to the volume expenditure GDP growth rate revision in 2023, mainly because of ASGS and revised annual data.

• Following the 2008 to 2009 recession, we now estimate that GDP returned to pre-economic downturn levels in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2013, revised from the previous estimate of Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2013.

The 2026 annual national accounts, also known as Blue Book 2026, will incorporate more recent survey and administrative information, together with methodological improvements. Further information on these changes is available in our Proposed changes to be implemented in Blue Book and Pink Book: 2026 article.

We will estimate data for 2024 using the annual supply and use tables (SUTs) framework for the first time. We will improve our estimates for 2022 and 2023 with updated data, which will look at the supply of goods and services, how they are used in the economy, and their associated prices in detail.

This article covers the annual and quarterly level and growth impacts on total gross domestic product (GDP), and the expenditure and income approaches resulting from these improvements.

Our Blue Book 2026: industry impact analysis article describes the industry impacts.

The next quarterly national accounts release on 30 September 2026 will incorporate these improvements into our official estimates in line with our National Accounts Revision Policy.

On 30 October 2026, we will publish our GDP revisions in Blue Book: 2026 article, alongside Blue Book and Pink Book.

Sources of major changes to GDP in Blue Book 2026

We previously announced the scope of expected Blue Book 2026 changes in our proposed changes article.

We have incorporated new data from the Annual Survey of Goods and Services (ASGS) for the majority of service industries for the first time. ASGS was introduced in 2017 to improve our understanding of the products that service industry businesses produce. This has led to a substantial rebalancing of products and industries using the new data. More details on the ASGS change are available in our Incorporating the Annual Survey of Goods and Services into the UK National Accounts article.

We have also implemented a range of improvements to the measurement of actual and imputed rental. The new method uses more representative rental prices and deflators and incorporates new data for rent-free accommodation. More details are available in our Improvements to private actual and imputed rentals in household expenditure in UK National Accounts article. 

We have also improved the consistency between the annual national accounts and public sector finances, by reflecting changes in the treatment of Integrated Joint Boards in Scotland and subsidies paid to Transport for London. Further details available in our Economic statistics classifications and developments in public sector finances: August 2025 article.

Other methodological improvements introduced in Blue Book 2026 include the introduction, for the first time, of estimates of own-account electricity production by households, as well as further improvements to the treatment of precious metals in trade in goods statistics.

We have also incorporated new and revised survey and administrative data for the years 2022 to 2024 as part of our open period balancing exercise, while energy products and industries were reviewed between 2017 and 2024.

In addition, we have implemented a number of smaller methodological improvements covering 1997 to 2024. With the exception of own-account electricity production by households, these changes are included collectively as the "others and open period" category shown in the charts in Sections 3 and 4 of this article.

Annual revisions to average current price GDP

Throughout this article, quarterly data labelled "Blue Book 2025" has been taken from our GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: April to June 2026 bulletin.

Figure 1 shows the revision to annual current price gross domestic product (GDP) from major methods and data changes, as a percentage of the level of GDP from 1997 to 2024.

The largest revisions to GDP were because of the integration of data from the Annual Survey of Goods and Services (ASGS) into the national accounts. The ASGS makes a positive contribution to the level of nominal GDP from 2007 onwards, with the largest contributions in 2023 and 2024. This brings the overall change to the level of GDP in 2024 up by 0.5%. This is because the new, detailed information on products produced by service industries prompted a detailed review of the supply and uses of these products. Greater confidence in the supply data from the ASGS has resulted in a higher overall production estimate, with the expenditure and income components also reviewed to align with this revised level of output.

Details of the effect of this rebalancing exercise on different industries can be found in our Blue Book 2026: industry impact analysis article, published alongside this one.

The next largest revision to GDP, particularly in earlier years, came from this year's work on improving the way we measure household final consumption expenditure (HHFCE) rental data, which comprise both private actual and imputed rentals. This change decreased the level of GDP by an average of 0.3% across the years 1997 to 2024. More information on these improvements is available in our Improvements to private actual and imputed rentals in household expenditure in UK National Accounts article.

We have also reflected recent economic statistics classification decisions in the measurement of our public sector aggregates. The subsequent adjustments to the public sector finance data have revised down the level of GDP by an average of 0.1% from 2019 onwards. Details about these decisions are available in our Economic statistics classifications and developments in public sector finances: August 2025 article.

In the years 2022 to 2024, new and revised data taken from survey and administrative sources have led to modest revisions. The "Others and open period" revision in 2019 is mainly because of a detailed review of the energy industries and products. This revision has added 0.1 percentage points, taking the overall revision to the level of GDP to 0.5%.

Figure 2 shows the revision to annual current prices GDP growth from 1998 to 2024.

There are small revisions to current price annual growth from 1998 to 2024. The average revision to GDP growth between 1998 and 2024 was positive 0.05 percentage points. Cumulative growth between 1998 and 2024 was revised up by 2.9 percentage points, from 201.5% previously to 204.4% now.

During this period the largest revision to GDP growth was a rounded increase of 0.2 percentage points in 2017, with the actual and imputed rental method improvement being the largest contributor. Because the growth rate revision is derived from changes in the levels, the smaller downward revision in 2017 compared with 2016 leads to an upward revision in the 2017 growth rate.

GDP in 2023 is now estimated to have increased by 6.8%, up by 0.2 percentage points from the previous publication. This was mainly caused by method changes, in particular incorporating the ASGS data for the first time. GDP growth in 2024 is now estimated to be 5.0%, unrevised from our GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: April to June 2026 bulletin.

Another way to understand the revision to current price GDP is to decompose it into a price effect and a real (volume) growth effect. Figure 3 shows this decomposition. It shows that in most years, the contribution from volume growth tends to dominate, being somewhat offset by the contribution from the price effect.

Quarterly revisions to current price GDP

Figure 4 shows the revisions to the quarterly profile of current price GDP growth from Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 1997 to Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2019. Because of the larger movements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the 2020 to 2024 quarters have been shown separately in Table 1.

Between Quarter 2 1997 and Quarter 4 2019, there is a mean revision of positive 0.004 percentage points from our current estimates to our latest dataset.

Table 1 shows the revisions to the quarterly profile of current price growth for 2020 to 2024. Overall, the quarterly profile through the years is relatively little changed. Between Quarter 1 2020 and Quarter 4 2024, there is a mean revision of negative 0.01 percentage points.

As previously explained in our GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: April to June 2026 bulletin, there can be uncertainty in the early estimates of GDP, and they are therefore more prone to revision as data content increases over time.

Annual revisions to volume GDP

Average annual volume growth is slightly higher between 1998 and 2024 though it remains at 1.8% and average quarterly growth remains at 0.5% to one decimal place. Over this time period, there is a mean revision of positive 0.06 percentage points.

Cumulatively small changes to recorded growth over this 26-year period add 2.5% to the level of GDP by 2024. Cumulative volume growth from 1997 to 2024 is now estimated at 61.7%, revised up from the previous estimate of 59.2%.

Average annual volume growth between 1998 and 2007 is estimated to remain unchanged at 2.8%. For the period 2010 to 2019, annual volume growth is now estimated at 2.1%, revised up by 0.1 percentage points.

There was no revision to the volume growth rate in 2008 (0.0%) and a 0.1 percentage point upward revision in 2009 (now a 4.5% fall).

Average volume GDP from 2020 to 2023 sees minimal revision. Growth in:

• 2020 and 2021 is unrevised

• 2022 is now estimated at 5.0% (previously a 5.1% increase)

• 2023 is now estimated at 0.4% (previously a 0.3% increase)

Average volume GDP for 2024 is now estimated to have increased by 1.1% revised up from a previous estimate of 1.0%. There can be differences in the three approaches to measuring GDP in 2024 at that stage in the quarterly production cycle, with annual volume growth estimated in a range of 0.8% to 1.2%. This is explained further in our GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: April to June 2026 bulletin.

As part of Blue Book 2026, data for 2024 have now been confronted using the three approaches to measuring GDP for the first time through the annual supply and use table (SUTs) framework. We have also incorporated richer annual data across a number of GDP components. For example, the production approach benefits from separate data on output and intermediate consumption from the Annual Business Survey, which is not available in the short term.

Figure 5 shows the decomposition of the change to the annual volume GDP growth rate by the cause of the change. These revisions reflect changes to current price estimates alongside the impact of price movements. Note that the disaggregation by cause of revision cannot be calculated for 2024 because of the way changes to sources and methods are processed.

In most years, the Annual Survey of Goods and Services (ASGS) makes a positive contribution to the growth rate revision in volume terms, with the biggest contribution being 0.17 percentage points in 2010 and 2023. Volume revisions are largely the consequence of current price revisions. If prices are broadly similar, current price growth revisions are also revisions in real terms.

However, ASGS has a further effect, because the new information from ASGS has provided greater insight into how different products are recorded and used within service industries. Since volume measures are calculated using detailed product-level deflators, reallocating activity towards products with different price movements changes the aggregate estimates as part of the double-deflation process. More specifically, the use of ASGS data has resulted in the identification of additional secondary production across industries. More information on the impact of this is available in Section 4 of our Blue Book 2026: industry impact analysis article.

Similarly to the current price picture, the actual and imputed rental change has a modest impact on growth in most years. The exception is 2017, where the large contribution to current price growth also leads to 2017 seeing the largest revision to volume GDP growth (up by 0.3 percentage points). As with the current price revision, this volume growth revision arises because the revision in 2017 is less negative than in 2016.

Cumulatively, GDP in volume terms is now estimated to have grown by 61.7% between 1997 and 2024, 2.5 percentage points more than the previous estimate of 59.2%.

Quarterly revisions to volume GDP

Between Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 1997 and Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2019, the revision to individual quarters ranges from negative 0.1 to positive 0.2 percentage points, with a mean revision of positive 0.02 percentage points (Figure 6).

The peak-to-trough of the 2008 to 2009 economic downturn is now estimated as a 6.3% fall, revised up from a 6.4% fall. The peak-to-trough quarters (Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2008 to Quarter 2 2009) are unchanged. Peak-to-trough is explained further in our Communicating the UK Economic Cycle methodology.

GDP now returns to the pre-economic downturn levels in Quarter 2 2013, revised up from a previous estimate of Quarter 3 2013. This is reflecting cumulative upward annual revisions from 2010 to 2013, as discussed earlier in this article.

Because of the large movements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the 2020 to 2024 quarters have been shown separately in Table 2. Overall, average growth from Quarter 1 2020 to Quarter 4 2024 is unrevised at 0.4%, with a mean revision of negative 0.02 percentage points.

The level of quarterly GDP in Quarter 4 2024 is estimated to be 4.1% above its pre-coronavirus pandemic level (Quarter 4 2019); this was previously estimated as 4.3% above. There is a revision to Quarter 4 2021, which was previously estimated as 0.8% above the pre-coronavirus pandemic level and is now 0.6% above. This remains the first quarter during which UK GDP exceeded its pre-coronavirus pandemic level.

Figure 7 shows the distribution of the quarterly volume revisions above. Of the 111 quarters open to revision, 96 of those see no revision to one decimal place growth.

Quarterly revisions to real GDP per head

As well as producing estimates of GDP, we also produce estimates of GDP per head (or per capita), which divides UK GDP by the total UK population. This is one proxy indicator of welfare, rather than production. As the UK population might not be changing at the same rate as GDP, this means that growth in GDP per head can show a different trend to growth in headline GDP. Table 3 shows the revisions to GDP per head as a result of the revisions to GDP.

GDP per head is still estimated to have increased by 0.1% in 2024, unrevised from the previous GDP release. This follows an upwardly revised fall of 0.9% in 2023 (previously a 1.1% fall), reflecting the upward revision to annual GDP.

The implied gross domestic product (GDP) deflator represents the broadest measure of inflation in the domestic economy, reflecting changes in the price of all goods and services that comprise GDP. The GDP deflator covers the whole of the domestic economy, not just consumer spending, and also reflects the change in the relative price of exports to imports. For more information on the implied GDP deflator, see our Measuring price changes of the UK national accounts: February 2023 article.

The annual average growth of the implied deflator between 1998 and 2024 is unrevised at 2.4%. These range from negative 0.2 to positive 0.1 percentage point revisions for individual years.

Compared with the same quarter a year earlier, the quarterly GDP implied deflator is on average revised down by 0.03 percentage points between Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 1998 and Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2019. However, some quarters see revisions between negative 0.3 and positive 0.3 percentage points (Figure 8).

Compared with the same quarter a year earlier, the quarterly GDP implied deflator is on average revised down by 0.01 percentage points between Quarter 1 2020 and Quarter 4 2024.

The expenditure approach is the sum of all final expenditures within the economy, that is, all expenditure on goods and services that are not used up or transformed in the production process. This approach to gross domestic product (GDP) includes gross fixed capital formation and exports less imports.

The expenditure method of calculating GDP combines values of:

• consumption

• investment

• government spending

• net exports

The major components of the expenditure method of calculating GDP are:

• gross fixed capital formation

• change in inventories and valuables

• exports and imports

• final consumption expenditure by households 

• final consumption expenditure by non-profit institutions serving households 

• final consumption expenditure by government 

The expenditure approach to GDP benefits from significant additional data sources not available when the quarterly estimates are compiled. These include:

• benchmark data for many products purchased by households, including the Annual Business Survey (ABS) covering retail sales of many goods

• benchmark data for gross fixed capital formation and changes in inventories, also from the ABS

• results from the Annual International Trade in Services (ITIS) survey

• data for non-profit institutions serving households, including from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)

• more detailed benchmark data on the volume of government output, for example, covering public sector health services

Between 1997 and 2006, household final consumption is the component accounting for the majority of the revision to current price GDP level, mostly because of the actual and imputed rent change (Figure 9). This downward contribution continues to be large until 2017, however the impact of this change is much smaller from 2017 onwards. Government final consumption makes a downward contribution starting in 2019; this is from the changes to improve the consistency between the Annual National Accounts and the Public Sector Finances publication.

Revisions to net trade make an upward contribution to the revised level of GDP from 2007 onwards (gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) from 2010 onwards). While there are methods changes (such as the precious metals change) that directly affect the measurement of these concepts, the main reason for these increases has been the rebalancing of products following the introduction of the Annual Survey of Goods and Services (ASGS). As discussed earlier, the detailed data from ASGS led to an overall increase in the level of confidence in output data. The supply use framework implies that the additional products supplied by these businesses must be purchased by someone. Figure 9 shows that net trade and gross fixed capital formation were the two components revised up the most because of this rebalancing and new information.

The contributions to the volume GDP growth rate revision by expenditure component are shown in Figure 10.

As seen in other decompositions of the volume growth, revisions to GDP volume growth are minimal between 1998 and 2006. The actual and imputed rental change affects the level but has little impact on the volume growth rate in these years.

Volume growth rate revisions from 2007 are mainly from household final consumption, net trade and GFCF. This mostly represents the effect of rebalancing expenditure components following the introduction of ASGS data.

There is a higher upward contribution from household expenditure in 2017. As we saw in Figure 9, the downward revision from actual and imputed rental was smaller from 2017 onwards and this has an upward effect on the volume growth rate. The impact of improving consistency between annual national accounts and public sector finances is small on growth rates in most years. The exception is 2019, but at the level of government final consumption, the change is offset by other minor government volume changes.

There are larger but offsetting contributions to the growth rate revision in 2023 and 2024. This is mainly the result of taking on new and revised annual survey data, particularly for net trade (specifically trade in services).

The income approach adds up all income generated by production in the form of:

• gross operating surplus (profits)

• compensation of employees (CoE) (income from employment)

• mixed income (self-employment income)

• taxes on products and production less subsidies for the whole economy

The income approach is used to estimate current price gross domestic product (GDP); it is not used for volume estimates.

As with the other approaches to GDP, the income approach also benefits from additional annual data that only become available some time after the time period being measured. The source of much of this additional information is tax data provided by HM Revenue and Customs. This includes employee compensation data from the Pay As You Earn system, mixed income data from Self Assessment Tax returns, and profits data informing gross operating surplus from Corporation Tax returns.

Self Assessment and Corporation Tax data are available one year later than other sources. This means that 2023 includes actual data, while forecasts of mixed income and gross operating surplus for 2024 are updated based on the data received before going through the supply and use balancing process.

Figure 11 shows the composition of revisions to the GDP level by income component in current prices. As the three approaches are fully balanced, the total GDP level revision matches the decomposition by major change in Figure 1 and the expenditure component decomposition in Figure 9.

Figure 12 shows the contributions made by each income component to the current price GDP growth rate revision.

Between 1997 and 2010, most of the revision to GDP is in the gross operating surplus and mixed income component. Revisions in this period are mostly caused by the method change to actual and imputed rental, which mainly decreased estimated gross operating surplus by private non-financial corporations and households. Actual and imputed rental also contributes to the slight spike in revisions in 2017, which shows more clearly in the growth rate revision.

From 2010 onwards, level revisions are more balanced between compensation of employees and gross operating surplus and mixed income. This reflects a mix of impacts from the actual and imputed rental change (which continues to reduce gross operating surplus and mixed income, though less from 2017 onwards) and the rebalancing brought about by implementing ASGS. Implementing ASGS overall led to higher overall compensation of employees and gross operating surplus and mixed income, reflecting the increased overall estimate of output and gross value added by businesses.

Blue Book 2026 includes minor revisions in output per hour, our headline measure of productivity, and output per worker.

Output per hour annual growth is now estimated to be a 0.8% fall in 2024, unrevised from the previous estimate, as shown in Figure 13. This is equal to the estimate published in the output per hour dataset as part of our Productivity flash estimate and overview, UK: January to March 2026 and October to December 2025 article.

Annual output per worker growth is now estimated to have risen by 0.33% in 2024, equal to our published estimate.

The updated Blue Book 2026 changes will be fully reflected in our Productivity flash estimate and overview, UK: July to September 2026 and April to June 2026 article, publishing on 17 November 2026.

Publication and addition of 2025 to 2026 data

The 2026 annual national accounts, also known as Blue Book 2026, will incorporate several methodological changes, along with the addition of new and more recent survey and administrative information. We have now estimated 2024 for the first time using the annual supply and use tables (SUTs) framework, and improved the estimates of 2023 with the latest data. Additionally, we have updated the last base year to 2024.

The next quarterly national accounts, released on 30 September 2026, will incorporate these revisions into our official estimates in line with our National Accounts Revision Policy. The quarterly national accounts release will incorporate the Blue Book 2026 methodological changes. And, as normal, it will also incorporate new and improved source data and additional updated data.

We will incorporate further data updates to expenditure and income components across 2025 and 2026 to form the average gross domestic product (GDP) estimates. Within our output measure of GDP, we will incorporate new Value Added Tax (VAT) turnover data for Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2025. We will also incorporate any updated source data received since our previous publication, and complete a full seasonal adjustment review. This could cause revisions to growth when we publish the Blue Book 2026 consistent dataset.

Data timeliness and impact on our estimates

Our annual estimates of GDP benefit from a wider range of data sources and the data confrontation involved in supply and use balancing. However, revisions to these data can and do happen for the following reasons:

• in the latest supply-use year (2024), some data sources are still not yet available for us to use; these include tax data informing the gross operating surplus and mixed income transactions, the activities of some non-profit institutions serving households, and more detailed government benchmark data informing public sector output of products such as human health services
• responses to the major structural surveys such as the Annual Business Survey (ABS) are still being received and queried; 2024 data are likely to contain some revisions when the 2027 annual estimates are compiled next year
• new and updated data also have an indirect effect through supply and use balancing; a revision to one transaction leads to a reassessment of the relevant product and industry balances, and may lead to the best estimate of other transactions changing to accommodate the new data

For these reasons, the latest balanced year (2024) is likely to see at least some revision when we publish the 2027 annual national accounts. The year before (for example, 2023 in this context) tends to see smaller revisions as it has now been through this supply-use process twice, and almost all of the main data sources have been received.

In addition, our ongoing programme of continuous improvement work to the UK National Accounts can lead to revisions throughout the data time series, not just in the latest three years. We will shortly publish the work programme for 2027, and we will communicate the outcomes of these improvements during 2027.

Our GDP revisions in Blue Book: 2025 article, published last year, analyses the revisions performance of GDP in more detail, and our GDP revisions for 2026 will be updated on 30 October 2026.

Update on Annual Business Survey processing error

In our Blue Book 2025: advance aggregate estimates article, we said that there had been an issue with the processing of Annual Business Survey data for 2023, but that it had not had a substantial effect on the final estimate. Having now reprocessed the data, we can now confirm this was the case; the supply and use balancing process had correctly anticipated the impact of the reprocessed data.

The upward revision of 0.2 percentage points to current price GDP in 2023 can be attributed to source and method changes. The largest contribution to this has been from the data confrontation exercise after incorporating the Annual Survey of Goods and Services detailed information, as shown in Figure 2.

In the UK National Accounts, gross domestic product (GDP) is measured by the output, income and expenditure approaches, where these are balanced to produce one coherent estimate of GDP.

In the UK, we use the supply and use tables (SUTs) framework as the basis for producing annual estimates of GDP. We use comprehensive information to fully reconcile how the economy performs across 112 industries and products. The SUTs reconciliation is first completed around 18 to 24 months after the reference period. For example, fully balanced estimates for 2023 were published for the first time in September 2025.

For those periods that have not yet been through the supply and use process, we use a transparent framework to manage this balancing process at an aggregate level, where we apply adjustments to GDP components. These adjustments reflect the relative strengths and weaknesses of the components and the information available at that time.

Each quarter, we publish the latest estimates for the economy within our GDP first quarterly estimate bulletin. Currently this means that:

• only data up to the last supply and use balanced year (2023) have been fully reconciled using the annual SUTs framework, covering up to the end of 2023

• data from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 to Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025 are balanced from all three approaches to produce an average - that is, the headline GDP figure reflected the average growth rates of the output, income and expenditure measures

• data for Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2025 onwards are led by the output approach with expenditure and income balanced to produce headline GDP - the headline GDP figure reflects the output growth rate, to which income and expenditure are balanced

As explained in our latest GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: April to June 2026 bulletin, growth was estimated to be in a range of 0.8% to 1.2% because of different data content and quality of the three approaches for 2024 at that stage in the production cycle.

The differences in these approaches may be for various reasons. The three approaches rarely reconcile completely in the quarterly estimates; we are not able to measure all concepts precisely in the short term, and statistical surveys always have a degree of variability associated with them.

The differences in the annual levels of the three measures of GDP is called the statistical discrepancy, and its purpose is to ensure that each approach to measuring GDP equals the average on an annual basis.

This statistical discrepancy will exist in the years following the last supply use balance. When the data are confronted through the SUTs framework, the statistical discrepancy will be removed, as all three measures will now be equal.

As part of Blue Book 2026, we have combined the three approaches to measuring GDP in 2024 for the first time, using the SUTs framework. In the September 2026 quarterly national accounts:

• data up to the last supply and use balanced year (2024) will now be reconciled using the annual SUTs framework, so there is one single estimate for all periods that have been fully balanced, which includes up to the end of 2024

• data from Quarter 1 2025 to Quarter 4 2025 will be balanced from all three approaches to produce an average; that is, the headline GDP figure reflects the average growth rates of the output, income and expenditure approaches

• data for Quarter 1 2026 onwards will be led by the output approach with expenditure and income balanced to produce headline GDP; that is, the headline GDP figure reflects the output growth rate, to which income and expenditure are balanced

As a result of changes to the level of annual GDP throughout the time series, the GDP quarterly and monthly path will also be revised to ensure alignment to the new annual levels.