GDP monthly estimate, UK: January 2025

• Monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have fallen by 0.1% in January 2025, mainly caused by a fall in the production sector, after growth of 0.4% in December 2024.

• Real GDP is estimated to have grown by 0.2% in the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to October 2024, mainly because of growth in the services sector.

• Monthly services output grew by 0.1% in January 2025, following growth of 0.4% in December 2024, and grew by 0.4% in the three months to January 2025.

• Production output fell by 0.9% in January 2025, following growth of 0.5% in December 2024, and fell by 0.9% in the three months to January 2025, with manufacturing output driving both the monthly and three-month falls.

• Construction output fell by 0.2% in January 2025, following a fall of 0.2% in December 2024, but grew by 0.4% in the three months to January 2025.

Monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have fallen by 0.1% in January 2025 following growth of 0.4% in December 2024 and growth of 0.1% in November 2024 (Figure 1).

Real GDP is estimated to have grown by 0.2% in the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to October 2024. Services grew by 0.4% over this three-month period, while production fell by 0.9% and construction grew by 0.4%.

Note that early estimates of GDP are subject to revision in future publications (positive and negative). Please see our Why GDP figures are revised article for more information.

There are no periods open for revision in this publication.

Production output decreased by 0.9% in January 2025 and was the largest contributor to the fall on the month. Construction also fell in January 2025, by 0.2%, while services partially offset these falls with a 0.1% rise in output (Figure 2).

Looking over the longer term, GDP is estimated to have grown by 1.2% in the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to January 2024. Over this period, services grew by 1.6%, while production fell by 1.8% and construction grew by 0.9%.

Compared with the same month a year ago, GDP is estimated to be 1.0% higher in January 2025.

Services output is estimated to have grown by 0.1% on the month in January 2025, after growth of 0.4% in December 2024. Of the 14 subsectors, output increased in six, with seven subsectors seeing output decline and one showing no growth in January 2025 (Figure 3).

The largest positive contribution in the services sector in January 2025 came from the administrative and support services subsector where output rose by 1.9% on the month, following growth of 1.1% in December 2024. Five out of the six industries in this subsector experienced growth in January 2025, with the largest contributions coming from increases in rental and leasing activities (up 3.0%) and services to buildings and landscape activities (up 4.9%).

The next largest positive contribution at the subsector level in January 2025 came from a 0.7% growth in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles. The growth in January 2025 was mainly driven by retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles (up 1.7%), Our Retail sales, Great Britain: January 2025 release reported strong growth in food store sales following falls in recent months (Figure 4).

The largest negative contribution in January 2025 came from accommodation and food service activities, which fell by 2.4% after growth of 0.9% in December 2024. Food and beverage service activities fell by 2.1%, after growth of 2.0% in December 2024, and accommodation also fell, by 3.4% in January 2025 following a fall of 1.9% in December 2024.

At the more detailed industry level, the largest positive contributions to services in January 2025 came from retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles (up 1.7%), scientific research and development (up 5.5%) and rental and leasing activities (up 3.0%).

The largest negative contributions to the month at this level came from legal activities (down 3.5%), telecommunications (down 3.7%) and food and beverage service activities (down 2.1%).

Overall, the services sector is estimated to have grown by 0.4% in the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to October 2024. There was a rise in output in 10 of the 14 subsectors in this period.

Human health and social work activities was the largest positive contributor to the rise in services output in this three-month period, growing by 0.9% in the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to October 2024. The next largest contributor came from financial and insurance activities where output increased by 0.6%. The largest negative contribution on the three months to January 2025 was education, which fell by 0.5%.

An overview of data sources used in our estimates of services output can be found in our GDP(o) data sources catalogue. Our Monthly Business Survey (MBS) is used for 43.6% of the services sector by industry weight. The turnover response rate for the MBS element of the services sector was 88.5% in January 2025. We would expect this to increase over time as more responses are received. Any new data will be included in future monthly GDP releases. For context, the average turnover response rates for the services sector in 2023 and 2024 now stand at 97.5% and 97.0%, respectively.

Consumer-facing services

Output in consumer-facing services increased by 0.1% in January 2025, following growth of 0.4% in December 2024. Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles was the largest contributor to the increase at the industry level, with output growing by 1.7%. Buying and selling, renting and operating of own or leased real estate, excluding imputed rent, and other personal services also grew in January 2025, by 0.6% and 1.5%, respectively (Figure 5).

The largest partially offsetting contributions within consumer-facing services in January 2025 came from food and beverage services (down 2.1%) and accommodation (down 3.4%).

Consumer-facing services output rose by 0.5% in the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to October 2024. The largest positive contributions in this period came from growth of 8.5% in travel agency, tour operator and other reservation service and related activities, and growth of 4.1% in other personal service activities.

The largest negative contribution over this three-month period was from wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which fell by 1.0%.

More information on consumer-facing services data is available in our Consumer-facing services January 2025 dataset.

More detailed breakdowns on services are available in our Index of Services, UK: January 2025 release.

Production output is estimated to have fallen by 0.9% on the month in January 2025, following a rise of 0.5% in December 2024. The decrease in January 2025 was mainly because of a 1.1% fall in manufacturing output. Mining and quarrying also contributed negatively with a 3.3% fall on the month, largely because of a 3.7% fall in extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas.

There were partially offsetting movements in water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (up 2.6%) and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (up 0.5%).

Production output is estimated to have fallen by 0.9% in the three months to January 2025, when compared with the three months to October 2024, mainly because of a 0.9% decrease in manufacturing output over this period. There were also negative contributions from mining and quarrying, which decreased by 2.7%, and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, which fell by 1.9% in the same period.

These were partially offset by water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities output, which increased by 2.1% in the three months to January 2025 (Figure 6).

Manufacturing output fell by 1.1% in January 2025 and was the largest contributor to the fall in production output on the month, following growth of 0.7% in December 2024. There were widespread falls within manufacturing with output decreasing in 9 of the 13 subsectors in January 2025. The largest negative contributions in January 2025 came from the manufacture of basic metals and metal products (down 3.3%), other manufacturing and repair (down 3.3%) and the manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations (down 3.1%).

The largest positive contribution in January 2025 came from the manufacture of wood and paper products, and printing (up 3.0%).

Figure 7 shows both the monthly and three-month contributions to manufacturing output from each of the manufacturing subsectors.

Looking more broadly, manufacturing fell by 0.9% in the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to October 2024, with 8 of the 13 subsectors falling over this period. Despite growth in January 2025, the manufacture of transport equipment was the largest contributor to this fall in manufacturing output over the three months (down 2.8%); prior to January 2025, this industry had fallen for four consecutive months. This fall can mainly be attributed to the manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, which fell by 4.4% over this three-month period.

Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers has been in a downward trend since its peak in February 2024 (Figure 8) and output has fallen by 8.8% in the last 12 months. The Chief Executive of The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that “UK vehicle producers are facing a perfect storm of global trade uncertainty, challenging manufacturing conditions and a market transition which is proving tougher than expected.”

Our Monthly Business Survey (MBS) is used for 72.9% of the production sector by industry weight. The turnover response rate for the MBS element of the production sector was 84.8% in January 2025. We would expect this to increase over time as more responses from businesses are received. Any new data will be included in future monthly gross domestic product (GDP) releases, in line with our National Accounts Revisions Policy. For context, the average turnover response rates for the production sector in 2023 and 2024 now stand at 97.7% and 97.2%, respectively. A full set of data sources used in monthly GDP can be found in our GDP(o) data sources catalogue.

More detailed breakdowns on production are available in our Index of Production, UK: January 2025 release.

Monthly construction output is estimated to have fallen by 0.2% in January 2025, which follows a similar decrease of 0.2% in December 2024. The fall in monthly output in January 2025 came solely from a fall of 0.7% in new work, as repair and maintenance grew by 0.4% (Figure 9).

Construction output is estimated to have grown by 0.4% over the three months to January 2025, compared with the three months to October 2024. New work increased by 1.4% over the period, whereas repair and maintenance fell by 0.9%. Within new work, the largest contributor to the increase came from public other new work, which grew by 9.3%. In repair and maintenance, the largest negative contributor came from private housing repair and maintenance, which fell by 2.3%.

Three out of the nine sectors saw decreases in January 2025. At the sector level, the main contributors to the monthly decrease were private commercial new work and private new housing, which fell by 6.1% and 1.8%, respectively.

Figure 10 shows both the monthly and three-month contributions to construction output from each of the construction sectors.

Construction data are sourced from our Monthly Business Survey. For January 2025, the survey turnover response rate for construction was 73.1%. We would expect this to increase over time as more responses are received and any new data will be included in future monthly gross domestic product (GDP) releases. For context, the average turnover response rates in 2022 and 2023 now stand at 94.8% and 95.3%, respectively, while the average response rate for 2024 is 94.2%.

Further detail on construction output growth rates can be found in our Construction output in Great Britain: January 2025 release.

The level of accuracy of growth rates in these statistics is one decimal place. While growth rates can be calculated to more than one decimal place using our monthly GDP and main sectors data, where a series is estimated to have shown no growth over a period, looking at further decimal places to gauge a direction is not recommended because of increasing levels of uncertainty.

Further information on measuring the data across our main data sources is available in the following releases:

• Index of Services, UK: January 2025

• Index of Production, UK: January 2025

• Construction output in Great Britain: January 2025

The main data source for these statistics is the Monthly Business Survey (MBS) and response rates for each can be found at

• Index of Services response rates

• Index of Production response rates

• Construction response rates

The Monthly GDP data sources catalogue provides a full breakdown of the data used in this publication.

In the UK, we produce estimates of monthly and quarterly GDP. Monthly estimates of GDP are based on only the output measure of GDP, while quarterly estimates of GDP reflect the average of the three approaches (output, income and expenditure).

Estimates for the construction industry within monthly GDP will differ to those published in the construction output release as they account for both the outputs produced and inputs consumed by the industry. There are also some coverage differences given the use of the Annual Business Survey in their compilation.

Consumer-facing services industry classification

The industry breakdown used for consumer-facing services is based on the UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC).

The following list contains the full SIC names of industries included in consumer-facing services:

• Wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles

• Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles

• Rail transport

• Accommodation

• Food and beverage service activities

• Buying and selling, renting and operating of own or leased real estate, excluding imputed rental

• Veterinary activities

• Travel agency, tour operator and other reservation service and related activities

• Gambling and betting services

• Sports activities and amusement and recreation activities

• Activities of membership organisations

• Other personal service activities

• Activities of households as employers of domestic personnel

Intermediate consumption in early estimates of monthly GDP

Monthly GDP measures the gross value added (GVA) of each industry in the economy. GVA is derived as the industries output minus its intermediate consumption, where output is the value of goods and services produced and intermediate consumption is the value of goods and services purchased to be used in the production of goods and services.

Estimates of intermediate consumption are only collected annually. For most industries, our monthly estimates are based on deflated turnover or volume estimates of output as a proxy for GVA. Complete estimates of GVA are calculated as part of our annual Blue Book process, here both output and intermediate consumption are measured. The annual process for calculating estimates of GVA is described in our Double deflation and the supply use framework in the UK National Accounts article.

The main assumption this proxy approach makes is that the relationship between output and intermediate consumption remains the same past the last year where annual GVA estimates are available. Therefore, the extent to which this proves not to be the case is one cause of revision between our early estimates of GVA and the fully balanced annual estimates. This relationship can be represented by the intermediate consumption ratio or IC ratio. This is the intermediate consumption of an industry divided by its output. The last year where annual GVA estimates are available is 2022 and the intermediate consumption ratios for each section are shown in Table 1.

When the annual data for 2023 are available, if the observed IC ratio of an industry is higher, it requires more product inputs to create the same amount of output, and hence GVA (other things equal) will be lower. We therefore expect an increase in the IC ratio of an industry to be associated with a downward revision in GVA growth. Similarly, a lower IC ratio in the most recent year would be associated with an increase in the GVA growth rate. 

The annual 2023 data will be included for the first time in our GDP Quarterly national accounts, UK: April to June 2025 bulletin published on 30 September 2025.

Strengths and limitations

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in March 2015. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".

Quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the Gross domestic product (GDP) Quality and Methodology Information.

Monthly growth rates can be volatile. This indicator should therefore be used with caution and alongside other measures, such as the three-month growth rate, when looking for an indicator of the medium-term trend of the economy. However, it is useful in highlighting one-off changes that can be masked by three-month growth rates.