GDP first quarterly estimate, UK: July to September 2025

• UK real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 0.1% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept), compared with growth of 0.3% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025.
• GDP is estimated to have increased by 1.3% in Quarter 3 2025, compared with the same quarter a year ago.
• In output terms, growth in the latest quarter was driven by increases of 0.2% in services and 0.1% in construction; the production sector fell by 0.5%.
• Real GDP per head is estimated to have shown no growth in the latest quarter and is up 0.8%, compared with the same quarter a year ago.
• We have updated our estimates for Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 to Quarter 2 2025 to be consistent with our UK trade release published on 16 October 2025; this update includes the full implementation of improvements to the measurement of precious metals.
• There are no changes to headline real GDP quarter-on-quarter growth across 2024 and 2025 as a result of this data update; however, there were some minor 0.1 percentage point revisions to the change in the GDP implied deflator, and the change in GDP in current prices for some quarters.

UK real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have increased by 0.1% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept), compared with growth of 0.3% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025 (Figure 1). GDP is estimated to be 1.3% higher in Quarter 3 2025, compared with the same quarter a year ago.

Our GDP monthly estimates bulletin, published on 13 November, shows that GDP fell by 0.1% in September 2025, following no growth in August 2025 (revised down from a growth of 0.1% in our previous publication) and an unrevised fall of 0.1% in July 2025.

Most notably, production output fell by 2.0% in September 2025 mainly because of a 28.6% decline in the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, which detracted 0.17 percentage points from monthly GDP. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders reported a large fall in vehicle output in September, "as a cyber incident paused production at a major manufacturer, while plant restructuring drove down commercial vehicle volumes". The Cyber Monitoring Centre categorised this as "a Category 3 systemic event".

In this bulletin, we have opened the dataset outside of our usual National Accounts Revision Policy to fully update the improvements to precious metals estimates in trade in goods for 2024 and 2025. This means we are now consistent with the data published on 16 October 2025 in monthly trade. No other components of GDP were affected, but more information on the impacts of this are described later in this section.

Early estimates of GDP are subject to revision (positive or negative). Our recently published analysis shows that the mean absolute revision between the first quarterly GDP estimate, and the same quarterly estimate three years later is, on average, plus or minus 0.28 percentage points. Revisions are made when more detailed information becomes available through the comprehensive annual supply and use balancing process, as the data content increases. For more information, please refer to our GDP revisions in Blue Book: 2025 article.

The GDP growth vintages from 2024 onwards are shown in Table 5. We give more information on uncertainty in Section 11: Data sources and quality.

Real GDP per head is estimated to have shown no growth in the latest quarter following six consecutive quarters of positive growth, but it is up 0.8% compared with the same quarter a year. See Section 6: Real GDP per head for more information.

Nominal GDP is estimated to have increased by 1.2% in Quarter 3 2025 and is now 5.1% higher, compared with the same quarter a year ago.

The implied GDP deflator is the broadest measure of inflation in the domestic economy, reflecting changes in the price of all goods and services that make up GDP. The GDP deflator covers the whole of the domestic economy, not just consumer spending. It 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.

Compared with the same quarter a year ago, the GDP implied deflator grew by 3.8% in Quarter 3 2025 mainly driven by household expenditure, general government and exports (Figure 2).

Trade improvements

As previously announced in our monthly UK trade bulletin, as part of our Blue Book and Pink Book 2025: trade impact estimates article, we implemented improvements to the way we record trade in precious metals. We removed the double counting of some precious metals bars and included previously under-recorded non-monetary gold that is not in bar form.

These trade improvements were implemented as part of our GDP quarterly national accounts bulletin, published on 30 September, for all countries from 1997 to 2023. However, because of a processing error for trade data, these improvements were not fully applied to a small number of countries for 2024 and 2025 at the time.

Corrected estimates were subsequently published in our UK Trade: August 2025 bulletin on 16 October 2025. In this GDP bulletin, we opened the dataset outside of our usual National Accounts Revisions Policy to update data for all countries for 2024 and 2025. We have done this to provide consistency with the trade data published on 16 October 2025.

The UK trade estimates for our October bulletin incorporated the corrected values for the periods Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 to Quarter 2 2025. However, associated running of latest seasonal adjustment also incorporated July and August 2025 (the period being reported); this further shaped the current price and Chained Volume measures seasonally adjusted series slightly, during 2024 and early 2025, as detailed in the next paragraph. The impact was a little larger for chained volume measures. Further detail is provided in our UK Trade: September 2025 bulletin.

As part of our national accounts balancing process, we use alignment adjustments to reconcile the differences between the income, expenditure, and output measures of GDP on a quarterly basis. These are used to account for discrepancies that can arise from timing differences - for example, when goods are produced in one quarter but are consumed in the next. We processed the trade in goods data in isolation and, as such, the main impacts of these changes are offset in the alignment adjustments so there is minimal impact to GDP.

Table 2 shows that there are no changes to headline real GDP quarter-on-quarter growth as a result of this update. However, as the size of the revision in trade in goods differed slightly in current price and chained volume measure estimates, we do see minor 0.1 percentage point revisions to the GDP implied deflator, and GDP in current prices. No other components of GDP were affected by this change – including the valuables component.

Output is estimated to have grown by 0.1% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025, following growth of 0.3% in the previous quarter. Overall, in Quarter 3 2025, 12 out of 20 of the subsectors of GDP increased; the services sector grew by 0.2%, construction output increased by 0.1%, while production fell by 0.5%.

Our GDP monthly estimates bulletin, published on 13 November, shows that GDP fell by 0.1% in September 2025. This followed no growth in August 2025 (revised down from a growth of 0.1% in our previous publication) and an unrevised fall of 0.1% in July 2025.

Most notably, production fell by 2.0% in September 2025 mainly because of a 28.6% fall in the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders reported a large fall in vehicle output in September because "a cyber incident paused production at a major manufacturer, while plant restructuring drove down commercial vehicle volumes". The Cyber Monitoring Centre categorised this as "a Category 3 systemic event". These declines in September were partially offset by increases of 0.2% in the services and construction sectors, respectively.

Services

Services output increased by 0.2% in Quarter 3 2025, following growth of 0.4% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025. Services output is estimated to be 1.6% higher compared with the same quarter a year ago. Non-consumer-facing services (business-facing services) increased by 0.3% in Quarter 3 2025, while consumer-facing services fell by 0.1%.

Figure 3 shows 9 of the 14 services subsectors contributed positively to growth. The largest positive contributor to growth was arts, entertainment and recreation, which increased by 3.5%. Within this subsector, the largest contributor was creative arts and entertainment activities, which grew by 12.5%.

The second-largest positive contributions were from the real estate activities sub-sector (up 0.3%), and the public administration and defence; compulsory social security sub-sector (up 0.8%).

The largest negative contributor to growth in Quarter 3 2025 was professional, scientific and technical activities which fell by 0.6%. Within this sub-sector, there were falls in five of the eight industries.

More detail on services can be found in our Index of Services, UK: September 2025 bulletin.

Production

The production sector is estimated to have fallen by 0.5% in Quarter 3 2025, following a 0.8% fall in the previous quarter. Production output is 0.9% lower, compared with the same quarter a year ago.

The fall in production in Quarter 3 2025 was mainly because of a decline of 0.8% in manufacturing and 1.5% in mining and quarrying. Elsewhere, there were increases of 0.7% in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, and a 0.6% increase in water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities.

Looking at the manufacturing sector in more detail, 5 out of 13 manufacturing subsectors contributed negatively to the fall in the latest quarter (Figure 4). The largest negative contributor to the fall was the manufacture of transport equipment, which declined by 4.5%. This was largely driven by the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers (down 10.3%) as outlined earlier in this release.

Further detail on production can be found in our Index of Production, UK: September 2025 bulletin.

Construction  

Construction output is estimated to have increased by 0.1% in Quarter 3 2025, following growth of 1.0% in the previous quarter. Repair and maintenance increased by 0.6%, and new work fell by 0.2% in the latest quarter. Within repair and maintenance (R&M), the largest positive contributor came from private housing R&M, which grew by 2.9%. In new work (NW), the largest negative contributor came from private housing NW, which fell by 1.9%. 

Further detail on construction output growth rates can be found in our Construction output in Great Britain: September 2025, new orders and Construction Output Price Indices, July to September 2025 bulletin.

Expenditure is estimated to have grown by 0.1% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025, which was mainly driven by increases in gross fixed capital formation, household consumption, net trade, and government consumption (Figure 5). These offset a large negative contribution from gross capital formation: other, which reflects lower valuables and inventories compared with Quarter 2 2025.

Household final consumption expenditure

There was a 0.2% increase in real household final consumption expenditure in Quarter 3 2025, and it is now 0.7% higher compared with the same quarter a year ago. Within household consumption, growth was driven by clothing and footwear, recreation, and culture.

Net tourism contributed negatively to growth in household consumption in the latest quarter. Net tourism is offset within trade, so there is no impact on the gross domestic product (GDP) aggregate. Information on how we measure net tourism is provided in our National Accounts articles: Treatment of tourism in the UK National Accounts. Excluding net tourism, domestic consumption grew by 0.2% in the latest quarter.

Consumption of government goods and services

Real government consumption expenditure grew by 0.3% in Quarter 3 2025 and is 1.9% higher compared with the same quarter a year ago. The growth in government consumption in the latest quarter mainly reflects increases in education and social care.

Gross capital formation

Within gross capital formation, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) grew by 1.8% in Quarter 3 2025, and is now 3.8% higher compared with the same quarter a year ago. The increase in the latest quarter was mainly driven by ICT equipment, other machinery and equipment, dwellings, and intellectual property products.

Within GFCF, business investment is estimated to have fallen by 0.3% in Quarter 3 2025 and is now 0.7% higher, compared with the same quarter a year ago.

Excluding the alignment adjustments, early estimates show that chained volume inventories fell by £657 million in Quarter 3 2025 (Table 3).

Net trade

The UK's trade deficit for goods and services is now estimated at 0.6% of nominal GDP in Quarter 3 2025. However, this includes non-monetary gold and other precious metals, which is an erratic series. It can be useful to exclude this from the trade balance.

Excluding non-monetary gold and other precious metals, the trade deficit is now estimated at 0.7% of nominal GDP in Quarter 3 2025 (Figure 6).

Export volumes fell by 0.1% in the latest quarter and are now 2.6% higher, compared with the same quarter a year ago. The fall in the latest quarter was mainly driven by a 0.1% fall in services exports, while there was no growth in goods exports. The decline in services exports was mainly because of other business services, travel, financial services, and construction services. Within goods exports, an increase in unspecified goods was offset by falls in machinery and transport equipment, and chemicals.

Import volumes are estimated to have fallen by 0.3% in the latest quarter and are now 4.7% higher, compared with the same quarter a year ago. Services imports fell by 0.8%, mainly because of other business services. There was no growth in goods imports, as a fall in unspecified goods offset rises in fuels and machinery and transport equipment.

Nominal gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 1.2% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2025 and is up by 5.1%, compared with the same quarter a year ago. Growth in nominal GDP was mainly driven by increases in compensation of employees (Figure 7).

Compensation of employees

Compensation of employees increased by 1.5% in the latest quarter and is up 8.3%, compared with the same quarter a year ago. Growth was driven by increases of 4.6% in employers' social contributions (mainly in National Insurance contributions) and 0.8% in wages and salaries.

Early estimates of private sector wages and salaries are based on estimates of the number of employees in the economy, from our Labour Force Survey (LFS), and average earnings from our average weekly earnings statistics. However, there is some additional uncertainty around the employee estimates used to derive our figures of wages and salaries, because of low response rates in the LFS. We have therefore used additional information from our Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information UK bulletin to help improve the accuracy of the income measure of GDP.

Other income

Other income is now estimated to have increased by 1.9% in the latest quarter and is 4.6% higher, compared with the same quarter a year ago.

This was driven by increases in both mixed income (mainly self-employment) and other gross operating surplus.

Taxes less subsidies

Taxes less subsidies are estimated to have increased by 1.0% in Quarter 3 2025, this follows a fall of 1.2% in the previous quarter.

There was a 0.7% increase in taxes (with growth in Stamp duty, Air passenger duty and Wine and Spirits), and a 1.6% fall in subsidies (mainly in Housing Equity Injection) which contribute positively to GDP.

Gross operating surplus

Total gross operating surplus (GOS) of corporations, excluding the alignment adjustment, fell by 0.7% in Quarter 3 2025 (Table 4). This is mainly because of a fall in private non-financial corporations.

There is uncertainty around estimates of non-financial corporations within the GOS of corporations. This is because we do not have up-to-date quarterly information on the gross trading profits of businesses. These data are collected from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and are available with a lag of approximately two years. We rely on contextual data from other sources to inform these quarterly estimates, as outlined in our Profitability of UK companies quality and methodology information (QMI).

We produce estimates of gross domestic product (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, which reflects a country's living standards. It captures the volume of goods and services available to the average person. Further information on this is available in our Trends in UK real GDP per head: 2022 to 2024 article.

Real GDP per head is estimated to have shown no growth in the latest quarter, following six consecutive quarters of positive growth (Figure 8); but it is up 0.8%, compared with the same quarter a year ago. There have been some small revisions to GDP per head figures across 2024 and 2025, reflecting revisions to GDP as discussed at the start of the release.

Population figures for up to mid-2024 are based on mid-year UK population estimates published on 26 September 2025. Figures for Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2024 to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2025 are based on an interpolation between UK 2022-based population projections for mid-2025 (as published on 28 January 2025), using the migration category variant and the mid-2024 UK population estimate. Figures for Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025 onwards are based entirely on UK 2022-based population projections.

Early estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) are subject to positive or negative revision, as described in our Why GDP figures are revised article. For more information, please refer to our GDP revisions in Blue Book: 2025 article published on 31 October 2025. The GDP growth vintages are shown in Table 5.

The three approaches to measuring GDP

There are three approaches to measuring gross domestic product (GDP):

• the output approach

• the expenditure approach

• the income approach

The data and data quality are different for each approach, and this dictates the approach taken in balancing quarterly data. There are more data available on output in the UK in the short term, than in the other two approaches. To get the best estimate of GDP, our published figure, estimates from all three approaches are balanced to produce an average, except in the latest two quarters where the output data take the lead, because of the larger data content.

The three approaches to measuring GDP allow us to confront our data sources within the national accounts framework. Figure 9 shows that the three approaches to measuring GDP are closely aligned. However, there can still be uncertainty at the component level, at this stage in the production cycle for 2024 and 2025, until these data have been confronted through the supply and use tables (SUTs) framework. This uncertainty may be for various reasons and is discussed further later in this section.

Output approach

In the output approach, we do not currently have final estimates for intermediate consumption (the value of goods and services purchased to be used up in the production of goods and services). This is outlined in our Blue Book 2025: advanced aggregate estimates article. Initially, we use turnover and output as a proxy for changes in gross value added. We assume that the intermediate consumption ratio by industry, calculated in 2023, holds constant into 2024 onwards. More information on this is provided in Section 11: Data sources and quality of our GDP quarterly national accounts, UK: April to June 2024 bulletin.

Expenditure approach

In the expenditure approach, we currently have lower response rates for areas, such as the Living Costs and Food Survey, which is one of many data sources that inform our estimates of household consumption. We therefore rely on additional indicators, such as our Monthly Business Survey, to quality adjust some of our estimates in the short term.

Income approach

In the income approach, we do not have up-to-date quarterly information on the gross trading profits of businesses. These data are collected from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and are available with a lag of approximately two years.

We rely on contextual data from other sources to inform these quarterly estimates, as outlined in our Profitability of UK companies quality and methodology information (QMI). There is currently more uncertainty around the compensation of employees figures in this release because of lower response rates in our Labour Force Survey (LFS), as described in our LFS: planned improvements and its reintroduction methodology. We have used additional information from our Earnings and employment Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK: January 2025 bulletin to help inform the estimates.

Reaching the GDP balance

Quarterly GDP is a balanced measure of the three approaches. The GDP monthly estimate focuses on gross value added (GVA) and output as a proxy for GDP. This results in data differences, in both levels and growth terms, between our quarterly bulletins (average GDP) and our GDP monthly estimate bulletins (output approach to GDP). Quarterly GDP is the lead measure of GDP because of its higher data content and inclusion of variables, that enable the conversion from a GVA concept to a GDP basis.

Information on the methods we use is in our Balancing the output, income and expenditure approaches to measuring GDP report.

Alignment adjustments, found in Table M of our GDP data tables, have a target limit of plus or minus £3,000 million on any quarter. However, in periods where the data sources are particularly difficult to balance, larger alignment adjustments are sometimes needed. This is explained in more detail in our Recent challenges of balancing the three approaches of GDP article. Our standard practice is to prefer that the alignment adjustment be out of tolerance rather than over-adjust individual GDP components to achieve a balance. This is most likely to occur in the latest quarter, where the constraints are larger, and where we must align to the output estimate for the change in GDP, and where the data content is at its lowest.

To achieve a balanced GDP dataset through alignment, we apply balancing adjustments to the components of GDP where data content is particularly weak in each quarter because of a higher level of forecast content. There were no balancing adjustments applied to the dataset in this release.

Net trade

Since the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020, arrangements for how the UK trades with the EU changed. HMRC implemented some data collection changes following Brexit, which affected statistics on UK trade in goods with the EU. We have made adjustments to our estimates of goods imports from the EU in 2021 and 2022 to account for these changes. However, a structural break remains in the full time series for goods imports from, and exports to, the EU from January 2021.

We advise caution when interpreting and drawing conclusions from these statistics. More detail is in our Impact of trade in goods data collection changes on UK trade statistics: summary of adjustments and the structural break from 2021 article.

We have been made aware of a data error in the HMRC trade in goods input data (Overseas Trade Statistics (OTS)) delivered to us by HMRC. This relates to the March 2024 reference period onwards. Further details are available in our UK trade release published on 13 November.

We are currently undertaking further processing and will correct the data feeding into our UK trade estimates in our:

• Balance of Payments and Quarterly National Accounts releases publishing on 22 December 2025
• UK trade bulletin publishing on 15 January 2026

This will be done at the earliest practical opportunity in line with our National Accounts Revisions Policy.

International Trade in Services estimates

From September 2025 until early 2027, International Trade in Services (ITIS) data (which account for approximately 50% of total Trade in Services) will be processed once each quarterly period. During this period, the data will be based on a robust survey response rate of between approximately 60% and 70%. This will enable more focus on improving processing systems and ensuring methods and quality in the future. In line with the National Accounts Revisions Policy, forecasted data up to Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2025 have now been replaced with ITIS-based estimates.

ITIS-based data in Trade in Services estimates at first quarterly estimate will be forecast until early 2027.

The International Passenger Survey (IPS), which is the source of travel services estimates (accounting for approximately 8% of total trade), is being transformed as part of our Improving our travel and tourism statistics project, and travel services estimates have been forecast since Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024. In this release, we have updated Quarters 1 and 2 2024 to be based on survey data. For later periods, estimates will be forecast during the period of the travel and tourism transformation.

Our Financial Services Survey (FSS) is undergoing transformation to improve the quality of our financial sector statistics. During the period of transformation, starting from Quarter 1 2024, financial services trade statistics in this publication are based on forecasts.

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 monthly GDP dataset for Producer Price Indices (PPI), Import Price Indices (IPI) Export Price Indices (EPI), and Service Producer Price Indices (SPPI) for July, August and September 2025 in this release. The quarterly SPPI estimates are splined to months for use in monthly GDP calculations.

These updates to price data will be incorporated in GDP estimates 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.

Strengths and limitations

The UK National Accounts are drawn together using data from many different sources. This ensures that they are comprehensive and provide different perspectives on the economy, for example, sales by retailers and purchases by households. Further information on measuring GDP can be found in our Guide to the UK National Accounts. More quality and methodology information is available in our GDP quality and methodology information (QMI).

Seasonal adjustment

The headline estimates of quarterly GDP 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.

GDP 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.

We use 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 page.

In our quarterly GDP estimates, seasonal adjustment is applied at a low level and the seasonally adjusted series are aggregated to create estimates by sector and total 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 Section 5: Case study: quarterly GDP of our Assessing residual seasonality in published outputs article, updated on 30 September 2025.

Important quality information

There are common pitfalls in interpreting data series. These include:

• expectations of accuracy and reliability in early estimates are often too high

• revisions are an inevitable consequence of the trade-off between timeliness and accuracy

• early estimates are often based on incomplete data

Very few statistical revisions arise because of "errors" in the popular sense of the word. All estimates, by definition, are subject to statistical "error".

Many different approaches can be used to summarise revisions. The section on Accuracy and reliability in our GDP QMI analyses the mean average revision and the mean absolute revision for GDP estimates over data publication iterations. For more information, please refer to our GDP revisions in Blue Book: 2025 article published on 31 October 2025.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in October 2016. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".