GDP, UK regions and countries: January to March 2021

• Regions of the UK (this page)

• Methodology used to produce these estimates

• Link to GDP in Scotland, published by the Scottish Government

• Link to GDP in Northern Ireland, published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

• In Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2021, all four countries in the UK showed negative quarter-on-quarter growth in gross domestic product (GDP); England decreased by 0.6%, Scotland fell by 1.6%, Northern Ireland fell by 1.0% and Wales fell by 1.7%, following growths in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2020.

• Of the nine English regions, the largest falls in Quarter 1 2021 were seen in East Midlands (negative 1.4%), and North East, North West and South East (all decreasing by 1.3%). The only region estimated to have increased was East of England, by 0.5%.

• Data within this release have been updated to include Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2021 but do not include any revisions to earlier data periods, including alignment to recently published Annual Regional Accounts or Quarterly National Accounts; the majority of this release presents only quarter on quarter changes from Quarter 4 2020 to Quarter 1 2021.

• As part of the ongoing development of these experimental statistics we are undertaking a project to refine methods to further improve data quality; we will incorporate revisions to the historic data at the same time as introducing any improvements to methods, to minimise the frequency of revisions for our users (see Section 5 for more information).

Gross domestic product

Gross domestic product (GDP) measures the value of goods and services produced in the UK. It estimates the size of and growth in the economy.

Production

Production is the process of combining various materials or other inputs in order to generate a product for consumption. It includes output in the manufacturing (the largest component of production), mining and quarrying, energy supply, and water supply and waste management industries.

Services

Services are activities that people, or businesses provide for a consumer or other businesses. The main components of the service industries are: wholesale and retail, hotels and restaurants, transport, storage and communication, business services and finance, and government and other services.

Background and development

In this release, we have paused updating the timeseries between Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2012 and Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2020, to focus on developing methods to improve data quality to minimise the frequency of revisions for our users. The development of these statistics is part of our ongoing work programme on experimental statistics. The majority of the data in this release focuses on the period Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2021 and the earlier data, from 2012 to 2019 are not balanced to the most recently published Annual Regional Accounts (the preferred source for annual gross domestic product (GDP) changes).

Data are presented in this release from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2012 to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2021 at total industry level within the regions (key figures table). However, the industry breakdown for the nine English regions and Wales are presented as quarter-on-previous quarter changes, from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2020 to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2021.

We have presented a longer timeseries for the total industry regional data (from 2012) as at that level it will be subject to less revision on future alignment.

Users who require quarterly region by industry data over a longer time period than presented in this release, could take historic data from our previous release and add on the latest data period. However, in doing so users should be aware the timeseries is subject to future revision.

Our work package for improvement will include a review of consistency between UK GDP and quarterly regional GDP, the processing systems and the constraints imposed as the datasets are compiled.