Producer price inflation, UK: June 2024 including services, April to June 2024

• Producer input prices fell by 0.4% in the year to June 2024, up from a revised fall of 0.7% in the year to May.

• Producer output (factory gate) prices rose by 1.4% in the year to June 2024, down from a rise of 1.7% in the year to May.

• On a monthly basis, producer input prices fell by 0.8%, while output (factory gate) prices fell by 0.3% in June 2024.

• Services producer prices rose by 3.1% in the year to Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2024, down from a revised increase of 3.7% in the year to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar).

Producer input prices fell by 0.4% in the year to June 2024, up from a revised fall of 0.7% in the year to May. Monthly input prices fell by 0.8% in June 2024, following a revised fall of 0.6% in May (Table 1).

Producer output (factory gate) prices rose by 1.4% in the year to June 2024, down from a rise of 1.7% in the year to May. Monthly output prices fell by 0.3% in June 2024, down from a revised rate of 0.0% in May (Table 1).

Estimates for both May and June 2024 are provisional, and figures for the latest 12 months are subject to revisions, as additional survey data are returned and validated. Effective response rates at time of first publishing can be found in Section 9: Strengths and limitations.

Of the 10 product groups for the input Producer Price Index (PPI), 4 made downward contributions to the annual inflation rate in June 2024. The largest of these came from inputs of fuels (energy), inputs of other parts and equipment, and inputs of chemicals, which contributed negative 0.74, 0.50 and 0.35 percentage points, respectively (Figure 2).

Fuel prices fell by 14.5% in the year to June 2024, which is down from a fall of 10.8% in the year to May (Table 2). The main contribution to this fall came from lower electricity prices, which fell by 11.3% in the year to June 2024. Fuel covers electricity and gas (D35) and coal (B05) of the classification of products by activity (CPA 2.1).

In comparison, the largest offsetting upward contribution came from inputs of domestic food, at 0.36 percentage points. Annual food input prices increased from 0.8% in May 2024 to 1.5% in June. The main contribution came from non-perennial crops, with bad weather and limited supplies leading to increased prices.

Inputs of metals and non-metallic minerals provided the largest contribution to the change in the annual inflation rate in June 2024, with an upward contribution to the change of 0.39 percentage points. The annual inflation rate for this product group was 0.0% in June 2024, which was up from negative 1.8% in May (Table 2).

The prices of materials and fuels imported by UK manufacturers fell by 0.2% in the year to June 2024, up from a revised fall of 1.3% in the year to May. Prices fell by 0.3% between May and June 2024, compared with a revised fall of 1.2% between April and May. Sterling appreciation has been associated with falling import prices over the past year, although that effect has eased in recent months (Table 3).

Of the 10 product groups for the output Producer Price Index (PPI), 7 made upward contributions to the annual inflation rate in June 2024. The largest of these came from refined petroleum products and "other outputs", which contributed 2.35 and 0.99 percentage points, respectively (Figure 3).

Coke and refined petroleum prices rose by 13.6% in the year to June 2024, down from 17.1% in the year to May (Table 4). Prices for "other outputs" rose by 1.7% in the year to June 2024, down from a rise of 2.2% in the year to May.

In comparison, offsetting downward contributions came from chemicals and paper products, at negative 1.37 and 1.10 percentage points, respectively. Chemical prices fell by 3.1% in the year to June 2024 (Table 4). This decrease was primarily caused by fertiliser prices.

Petroleum products made the largest contribution to the change in the annual inflation rate in June 2024, with a downward contribution of 0.26 percentage points.

Prices for services provided by UK companies, excluding financial and insurance services, rose 3.1% in the year to Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2024, down from a revised increase of 3.7% in the year to Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2024 (Figure 4). Quarterly output prices for services rose 0.8% in Quarter 2 2024, down from an increase of 1.3% in Quarter 1 2024 (Table 5).

Of the nine product groups for the Services Producer Price Index (SPPI), five made upward contributions to the annual inflation rate in Quarter 2 2024. The largest of these came from accommodation and food services, and administrative and support services, at 3.40 and 1.98 percentage points, respectively (Figure 5). Accommodation and food services had an annual price rise of 6.0% in the year to Quarter 2 2024, down from 7.1% in Quarter 1 (Table 6). This was mainly attributed to price increases in canteen services.

In comparison, the largest offsetting downward contribution came from professional, scientific and technical services, at 1.46 percentage points.

Information and communication services made the largest downward contribution to change in the annual inflation rate in Quarter 2 2024, at 0.19 percentage points. Prices for this product group rose 3.0% in Quarter 2 2024, down from a 4.0% rise in Quarter 1.

Weight

This is the importance of the price of interest relative to other prices collected. With annual chain-linking, this is updated every year using business turnover data.

Index value

Price level in a specific basket of goods.

Annual growth rate

The annual inflation rate.

Link factor

A smoothing factor applied to create a continuous series following a weights change.

Contribution

As the aggregate producer prices indices are built up from individual product indices, it is possible to decompose overall inflation into contributions from different products. Those contributions reflect both the inflation rates for each product and their weight in the index. For more worked examples, see the scenarios in Section 8: Measuring the data.

Producer price inflation

Changes in the prices of goods bought and sold by UK manufacturers, including price indices of materials and fuels purchased (input prices) and factory gate prices (output prices).

If the producer price inflation rate is a positive value, this indicates that prices have risen, while a negative value indicates that prices have fallen.

Input prices

The input price measures the price of materials and fuels bought by UK manufacturers for processing. It includes materials and fuels that are either imported or sourced from within the domestic market. It is not limited to materials used in the final product but includes what is required by businesses in their normal day-to-day running, such as fuels.

Output prices

The output price (also known as the factory gate price) is the amount received by UK producers for the goods that they sell to the domestic market. It includes the margin that businesses make on goods, in addition to costs such as labour, raw materials and energy, as well as interest on loans, site or building maintenance, or rent.

Services producer price inflation

Quarterly estimates monitoring the changes in prices charged for services provided to UK-based customers for a range of industries.

Producer prices development plan

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) quality report of the Producer Price Indices (PPI) was published in July 2023. The report notes the excellent progress made recently with bringing PPI in line with methodological best practice, but also highlights areas that need to be improved.

Our Producer prices development plan was published in October 2023, detailing the work that will be undertaken over the next year to improve the quality of PPI data and continue to meet user needs.

The Producer Price Index

The Producer Price Index (PPI) uses contributions to identify how indices influence the overall inflation rate. This section gives additional information on the calculation and how to interpret it.

Example scenarios

The following gives examples of how weight and inflation rate changes most commonly affect the contribution. In PPI, the weights usually have greater influence on the contribution to the annual rate, as these tend to show greater change than the annual inflation rate:

• decrease in weight, decrease in inflation rate - contribution is negative

• decrease in weight, no change in inflation rate - contribution is negative

• decrease in weight, increase in inflation rate - contribution is usually negative

• no change in weight, decrease in inflation rate - contribution is usually negative

• no change in weight or inflation rate - no change

• no change in weight, increase in inflation rate - contribution is usually positive

• increase in weight, decrease in inflation rate - contribution is usually positive

• increase in weight, no change in inflation rate - contribution is positive

• increase in weight, increase in inflation rate - contribution is positive

Contributions are calculated using the following formula:

Quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Producer price indices QMI and our Services Producer Price Inflation QMI.

Other useful documentation from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the PPI and the Services Producer Price Index (SPPI) are:

• Producer Price Indices methods changes article

• Chain-linking in business prices article

• Producer price weight changes article

• Services producer price weight changes article

• Guidance on using indices in Indexation Clauses (PDF, 197KB)

• PPI methods and guidance (PDF, 1.18MB)

• SPPI user guidance and methodology

• PPI standard errors: 2017 datasets

• UK SPPI standard errors: 2016 to 2017 article

Sterling effective exchange rate

The sterling effective exchange rate measures the level of sterling relative to a basket of other currencies. The weights in the basket reflect all UK trade, and may therefore be different from those for manufactured goods, which are most relevant for producer prices.

Data revisions policy

Figures for the latest two months are provisional, and the latest 12 months are subject to revisions because of late and revised respondent data. The PPI revision policy is now in line with that of the national accounts. Published information on our revisions policy and revisions triangles shows how estimates are revised over time.

Strengths

These data:

• provide users with valuable insight into the changes in the prices of goods and services bought and sold by UK manufacturers

• are comprehensive, covering many products at a much greater level of detail than other surveys

• are internationally comparable with any country using the classification by product activity (CPA) or the central product classification (CPC) systems

• are created using a rotational sampling method to enable many new products and new respondents to be included

• are chain-linked annually to improve results in deflation by reducing substitution bias

Limitations

The limitations are that:

• some products are produced by only a small number of manufacturers, meaning that there may not be enough manufacturers for a detailed and robust analysis, requiring some estimation

• the data can be revised for 12 months

• the data for the latest two months of the Producer Price Index (PPI) and two quarters of the Services Producer Price Index (SPPI) are provisional

Response rates in June 2024

In June 2024, the response rates for the domestic PPI and the Import Price Index (IPI) were higher than they were in June 2023, whereas the response rate for the Export Price Index (EPI) was lower (Table 7).

The response rate for the SPPI decreased between Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2023 and Quarter 2 2024 (Table 8).

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in June 2010. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".