The UK economy grew by 0.4 percent in May 2025 after shrinking by 0.1 percent in May. Since a huge decline in GDP in April 2020, the UK economy has gradually recovered and is now around 4.4 percent larger than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. After the initial recovery from the pandemic, however, the UK economy has effectively flatlined, fluctuating between low growth and small contractions since January 2022. Labour banking on growth to turn around fortunes in 2025 In February 2025, just over half a year after winning the last general election, the approval rating for the new Labour government fell to a low of -48 percent. Furthermore, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer was not only less popular than the new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, but also the leader of the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, whose party have surged in opinion polls recently. This remarkable decline in popularity for the new government is, in some part, due to a deliberate policy of making tough decisions early. Arguably, the most damaging of these policies was the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance for some pensioners, although other factors such as a controversy about gifts and donations also hurt the government. While Labour aims to restore the UK's economic and political credibility in the long term, they will certainly hope for some good economic news sooner rather than later. Economy bounces back in 2024 after ending 2023 in recession Due to two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, in late 2023 the UK economy ended the year in recession. After not growing at all in the second quarter of 2023, UK GDP fell by 0.1 percent in the third quarter, and then by 0.3 percent in the last quarter. For the whole of 2023, the economy grew by 0.4 percent compared to 2022, and for 2024 is forecast to have grown by 1.1 percent. During the first two quarters of 2024, UK GDP grew by 0.7 percent, and 0.4 percent, with this relatively strong growth followed by zero percent growth in the third quarter of the year. Although the economy had started to grow again by the time of the 2024 general election, this was not enough to save the Conservative government at the time. Despite usually seen as the best party for handling the economy, the Conservative's economic competency was behind that of Labour on the eve of the 2024 election.

The United Kingdom's economy grew by 1.1 percent in 2024, after a growth rate of 0.4 percent in 2023, 4.8 percent in 2022, 8.6 percent in 2021, and a record 10.3 percent fall in 2020. During the provided time period, the biggest annual fall in gross domestic product before 2020 occurred in 2009, when the UK economy contracted by 4.6 percent at the height of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Before 2021, the year with the highest annual GDP growth rate was 1973, when the UK economy grew by 6.5 percent. UK economy growing but GDP per capita falling In 2022, the UK's GDP per capita amounted to approximately 37,371 pounds, with this falling to 37,028 pounds in 2023, and 36,977 pounds in 2024. While the UK economy as a whole grew during this time, the UK's population grew at a faster rate, resulting in the negative growth in GDP per capita. This suggests the UK economy's struggles with productivity are not only stagnating, but getting worse. The relatively poor economic performance of the UK in recent years has not gone unnoticed by the electorate, with the economy consistently seen as the most important issue for voters since 2022. Recent shocks to UK economy In the second quarter of 2020, the UK economy shrank by a record 20.3 percent at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there was a relatively swift economic recovery initially, the economy has struggled to grow much beyond its pre-pandemic size, and was only around 3.1 percent larger in December 2024, when compared with December 2019. Although the labor market has generally been quite resilient during this time, a long twenty-month period between 2021 and 2023 saw prices rise faster than wages, and inflation surge to a high of 11.1 percent in October 2022.

The statistic shows the GDP of the United Kingdom between 1987 and 2024, with projections up until 2030, in US dollars.Private-sector-led economic recoveryGDP is counted among the primary indicators that are used to gauge the state of health of a national economy. GDP is the total value of all completed goods and services that have been produced within a country in a given period of time, usually a year. GDP figures allow us to gain a broader understanding of a country’s economy in a clear way. Real GDP, in a similar way, is also a rather useful indicator; this is a measurement that takes prices changes (inflation and deflation) into account, thereby acting as a key indicator for economic growth.The gross domestic product of the United Kingdom is beginning to show signs of recovery since seeing a sharp decline in the wake of the financial crisis. The decreasing unemployment rate in the United Kingdom is also indicating that the worst could be over for the country. However, some concerns have arisen about what forms of employment are being represented, how stable the jobs are, and whether or not they are simply being cited by officials in government as validation for reforms that are criticized by opponents as being ‘ideologically motivated’. Whatever the political motivation, the coalition government’s efforts to let the private sector lead the economic recovery through increasing employment in the UK in the private sector appear, for now at least, to be working.

The statistic shows GDP per capita in the United Kingdom from 1987 to 2020, with projections up until 2030. In 2020, GDP per capita in the United Kingdom was at around 40,230.55 US dollars. The same year, the total UK population amounted to about 67.26 million people. The United Kingdom is among the leading countries in a world GDP ranking.Falling unemployment in a time of recessionGDP is a useful indicator when it comes to measuring the state of a nation’s economy. GDP is the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time, usually a year. GDP per capita equals exactly the GDI (gross domestic income) per capita and is not a measure of an individual’s personal income.As can be seen clearly in the statistic, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the United Kingdom is beginning to increase, albeit not to pre-recession levels. The UK is beginning to see signs of an economic recovery, though as of yet it remains unclear what sort of recovery this is. Questions have been raised as to whether the growth being seen is the right sort of growth for a well balanced recovery across the necessary sectors. An interesting oddity occurred in the United Kingdom for nine months in 2012, which saw a decreasing unemployment occurring at the same time as dip in nationwide economic productivity. This seems like good - if not unusual - news, but could be indicative of people entering part-time employment. It could also suggest that labor productivity is falling, meaning that the UK would be less competitive as a nation. The figures continue to rise, however, with an increase in employment in the private sector. With the rate of inflation in the UK impacting everyone’s daily lives, it is becoming increasingly difficult for vulnerable groups to maintain a decent standard of living.

In May 2025, the UK inflation rate was 3.6 percent, with prices rising fastest in the housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels sector, which had an inflation rate of 7.8 percent. In this month, prices were rising in all sectors, with prices rising at the slowest pace in the clothing and footwear sector. UK inflation falls in 2024 After reaching a peak of 11.1 percent in October 2022, the CPI inflation rate in the UK gradually declined over several months, falling to a low of 1.7 percent by August 2024. An uptick in inflation has occurred since that month, however, and by the end of the year, inflation was at 2.5 percent above the Bank of England's target rate of two percent. Going into 2025, recent forecasts suggest that over the course of the year, inflation will average out at 2.6 percent, with the two percent target not met on an annual basis until at least 2029. Roots of the inflation crisis This long period of high inflation that the UK and much of the world experienced had its roots in the post-pandemic economic recovery of 2021. During that year, as consumer demand returned, global supply chains struggled to return to full capacity, resulting in prices rising. With inflation already elevated going into 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine added even more inflationary pressures to the global economy. European markets which were heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas gradually phased out hydrocarbons from their economies. Food prices were also heavily impacted due to Ukraine's difficulty in exporting its agricultural products.

Construction output in the United Kingdom increased 1.50 percent in June of 2025 over the same month in the previous year. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United Kingdom Construction Output - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Material recovery service providers have contended with numerous economic headwinds in recent years, ranging from subdued economic growth during the cost-of-living crisis and the high base rate environment as central banks aimed to curb spiralling inflation. Revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 4.1% over the five years through 2025 to €120.7 billion, including an estimated dip of 0.7% in 2025. Demand for material recovery services is highly contingent on downstream construction, mining and manufacturing sectors producing hefty waste. Since the end of the pandemic, high interest rates have ramped up the cost of borrowing while building material costs skyrocketed, putting off many developers from beginning projects and weighing on construction activity. Subdued economic growth has also hit the manufacturing sector, eroding demand for material recovery services. According to the European Commission, 527 kilograms (kg) of municipal waste per capita was generated in the EU in 2021, while 49% of municipal waste in the EU was recycled. This figure declined to 511kg of municipal waste per capita generated in 2023, with 48% of waste being recycled. The decrease in municipal waste per capita suggests a potential shift towards more sustainable consumption and production patterns. This can positively influence the quality of materials recovered, as higher-quality waste streams may become available for recycling. Decreased waste generation and stagnating recycling rates also signify reduced available materials for recovery, which has impacted revenue streams for companies reliant on high volumes. This stagnation might indicate challenges in public engagement and infrastructure that need addressing to prevent further declines. However, growing recycling rates in the coming years are set to maintain demand, supported by government initiatives like the European Green Deal, which includes the Circular Economy Action Plan. Revenue is expected to climb at a compound annual rate of 3.1% over the five years through 2030 to €140.9 billion. Economic conditions are set to improve in the short term as inflationary pressures subside, allowing central banks to adopt looser monetary policy and support GDP growth. This will drive downstream construction and manufacturing sector activity in the short term, lifting demand for material recovery services. The growing emphasis on sustainability will also persist in the coming years as countries across Europe strive for a circular economy, driving demand and supporting revenue growth.

What caused the recovery from the British Great Depression? A leading explanation - the “expectations channel” - suggests that a shift in expected inflation lowered real interest rates and stimulated consumption and investment. However, few studies have measured, or tested the economic consequences of, inflation expectations. In this paper, we collect high-frequency information from primary and secondary sources to measure expected inflation in the United Kingdom between the wars. A VAR model suggests that inflation expectations were an important source of the early stages of economic recovery in interwar Britain.

The gross domestic product of the United Kingdom was around 2.56 trillion British pounds, an increase when compared to the previous year, when UK GDP amounted to about 2.54 trillion pounds. The significant drop in GDP visible in 2020 was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the smaller declines in 2008 and 2009 because of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Low growth problem in the UK Despite growing by 0.9 percent in 2024, and 0.4 percent in 2023 the UK economy is not that much larger than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since recovering from a huge fall in GDP in the second quarter of 2020, the UK economy has alternated between periods of contraction and low growth, with the UK even in a recession at the end of 2023. While economic growth picked up somewhat in 2024, GDP per capita is lower than it was in 2022, following two years of negative growth. UK's global share of GDP falling As of 2024, the UK had the sixth-largest economy in the world, behind the United States, China, Japan, Germany, and India. Among European nations, this meant that the UK currently has the second-largest economy in Europe, although the economy of France, Europe's third-largest economy, is of a similar size. The UK's global economic ranking will likely fall in the coming years, however, with the UK's share of global GDP expected to fall from 2.16 percent in 2025 to 2.02 percent by 2029.  

The Scottish economy, such as the United Kingdom (UK) economy, has been exposed to several adverse shocks over the past 5 years. Examples of these are the effect of the United Kingdom exiting the European Union (Brexit), the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and more recently Russia–Ukraine war, which can result in adverse direct and indirect economic losses across various sectors of the economy. These shocks disrupted the food and drink supply chains. The purpose of this article is 3-fold: (1) to explore the degree of resilience of the Scottish food and drink sector, (2) to estimate the effects on interconnected sectors of the economy, and (3) to estimate the economic losses, which is the financial value associated with the reduction in output. This article focuses on the impact that the sudden contraction that the “accommodation and food service activities”, resulting from the pandemic, had on the food and drink sectors. For this analysis, the study relied on the dynamic inoperability input–output model (DIIM), which takes into account the relationships across the different sectors of the Scottish economy over time. The results indicate that the accommodation and food service sector was the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown contracting by approximately 60%. The DIIM shows that the disruption to this sector had a cascading effect on the remaining 17 sectors of the economy. The processed and preserved fish, fruits, and vegetable sector is the least resilient, while preserved meat and meat product sector is the most resilient to the final demand disruption in the accommodation and food service sector. The least economically affected sector was the other food product sector, while the other service sector had the highest economic loss. Although the soft drink sector had a slow recovery rate, economic losses were lower compared to the agricultural, fishery, and forestry sectors. From the policy perspective, stakeholders in the accommodation and food service sector should re-examine the sector and develop capacity against future pandemics. In addition, it is important for economic sectors to collaborate either vertically or horizontally by sharing information and risk to reduce the burden of future disruptions. Finally, the most vulnerable sectors of the economy, i.e., other service sectors should form a major part of government policy decision-making when planning against future pandemics.

This is a summary report on the economic impact of COVID-19 on London’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It presents a uniquely granular and timely analysis of the impacts on London’s SMEs by sectoral, financial, employment, and risk indicators and includes deep dive case studies on the economic impact on the Night Time Economy, high streets and town centres, and the Culture and Creative industries.

The analysis was undertaken on a pro bono basis by Bloomberg Associates, for and in close collaboration with the GLA providing guidance and direction. Partners supporting Bloomberg Associates included Slalom, Burning Glass Technologies, DueDil and CK Delta. It leverages a combination of public and private data from a range of financial, economic, behavioural, sociographic and demographic sources and complements the macro-economic scenarios for the London economy.

The study was conducted between March 2020 and June 2020 and leverages the most updated data that was available at the time. It is important to note that new data and evidence constantly emerges and could be integrated in a potential future iteration of this work. The report has sought to:

• Illustrate the impact of the pandemic on London’s SMEs and local employment and improve understanding of the scale and scope of the economic challenges that London faces in recovery.
• Demonstrate the application of “bottom-up” and localised data to create a more complete, granular picture of overall economic impact
• Show the intersection of impact by sectors and geographies, exploring the relationship between these two factors to demonstrate the risk hot spots across Greater London.

If you have any comments or questions related to the report, please email GLA Economics

Co-working spaces have become an essential part of the digital economy but how will Covid-19 affect their growth in urban areas?

This Round 1 Innovation Fund project followed the experiences of several co-working projects through the pandemic to explore what role co-working spaces might play in new flexible, hybrid models of work.

Research questions How have co-working spaces responded to the COVID-19 crisis? How do co-working spaces stand to be incorporated into the economic recovery and urban regeneration efforts in the aftermath? Method Over 40 interviews were conducted in Brighton, Bristol and Manchester with representatives from a range of coworking spaces and of local and regional government.

Key findings The future of urban co-working spaces will be shaped by the wider dynamics of the urban property market and shifts in corporate demand for flexible workspace. These forces will likely prove more influential than anything specific to their founding organisation and social purpose. The pandemic underscored the ambivalent position of co-working spaces as hosts rather than employers and revealed the variable positions of different co-working space business models in the face of disrupted income streams. At the same time, co-working spaces have contributed to the recovery from the pandemic by providing places to work collaboratively or collectively alongside shifts towards more flexible work and working from home. In this respect their importance is likely to increase. Attention is shifting from the towering dominance of London to smaller urban hubs and especially commuting towns. Although local and national government are beginning to recognise the potential importance of co-working spaces, they have not begun to develop strategies to nurture them. This gap risks leaving co-working spaces and their users adrift in increasingly turbulent and competitive market conditions. This is especially important at a time where they stand to play a central role in providing sites for experimentation with, and adaptation to, new digitally-mediated working practices emerging from the pandemic, for a potentially much broader array of workers than spaces previously served.

Out of the world's seven largest economies, the United Kingdom was the most negatively affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. During the third quarter of 2020, the GDP growth rate of the UK stood at minus *** percent compared to the previous year. Furthermore, the GDPs of India and Japan were contracted by minus *** percent. Only China experienced a positive GDP growth rate of *** percent during that same period. However, in 2021, all the largest economies worldwide started to recover, with growth rates varying from *** percent (Japan) to over **** percent (India).

Companies in the industry own and operate waste-to-energy plants. Waste-to-energy is an umbrella term for a variety of processes that are used to create energy out of waste, including the economic recovery of municipal waste and generation of energy.

Economic uncertainty and inflationary pressures have spurred a degree of instability in the UK economy in recent years. This has spurred a reluctance among private investors to dedicate significant spending towards capital ventures, weighing on lead generation in commercial building construction markets. High construction costs and rising interest rates have led to further apprehension among property developers to engage in new ventures, though long-term government capital procurement frameworks have provided some resilience to wavering provate investemt. Revenue is slated to rise at a compound annual rate of 0.5% over the five years through 2024-25, reaching £22.8 billion. Aided by the release of pent up demand and a stronger than anticipated initial economic recovery from the pandemic, the industry recorded a strong rebound in new orders from pandemic-induced lows in 2021-22, particularly in private commercial and private industrial markets. However, capacity constraints and the impact of reduced new work volumes secured during the height of the pandemic limited output growth. Growth in new order volumes slowed in 2022-23, as economic uncertainty compounded and rising tender prices reduced the propensity of investors to commit to commercial real estate ventures. High borrowing costs continued to weigh on investor sentiment in 2023-24. However, a steady stream of work on projects procured through capital procurement frameworks, including Procure23 and the School Rebuilding Programme, is set to maintain revenue growth through the current year. Revenue is expected to increase by 6.6% in 2024-25. Revenue is slated to climb at a compound annual rate of 0.3% to reach £23.2 billion over the five years through 2029-30. The effects of the UK's economic slowdown will continue to bite in the near term, as weak order books limit remuneration. Input price inflation is set to continue to ease in the medium term. However, material costs are likely to remain elevated and a construction worker shortage will pressure profit. Commitments made by the government as part of capital procurement frameworks will continue to support demand for commercial building contractors in the coming years, while private sector order books should improve as borrowing costs come down.

These documents were produced through a collaboration between GLA, PHE London and Association of Directors of Public Health London.

The wider impacts slide set pulls together a series of rapid evidence reviews and consultation conversations with key London stakeholders. The evidence reviews and stakeholder consultations were undertaken to explore the wider impacts of the pandemic on Londoners and the considerations for recovery within the context of improving population health outcomes.

The information presented in the wider impact slides represents the emerging evidence available at the time of conducting the work (May-August 2020). The resource is not routinely updated and therefore further evidence reviews to identify more recent research and evidence should be considered alongside this resource.

It is useful to look at this in conjunction with the ‘People and places in London most vulnerable to COVID-19 and its social and economic consequences’ report commissioned as part of this work programme and produced by the New Policy Institute.

Additional work was also undertaken on the housing issues and priorities during COVID. A short report and examples of good practice are provided here.

These reports are intended as a resource to support stakeholders in planning during the transition and recovery phase. However, they are also relevant to policy and decision-making as part of the ongoing response.

The GLA have also commissioned the University of Manchester to undertake a rapid evidence review on inequalities in relation to COVID-19 and their effects on London.

The Youth Economic Activity and Health (YEAH) Survey, 2021-2022 was a major data collection effort to track the well-being, learning, and expectations of 16-25-year-olds in the second phase of the COVID-19 pandemic after effective vaccines had started to roll out. In all, it collected 8,000 data points between February 2021 to November 2022 using web interviews in quota samples recruited from proprietary access panels managed by Ipsos MORI and partners. The survey’s main objectives were to deliver intelligence on: 1. Successful transitions 2. Future planning, optimism and expectations 3. Learning progression in education and the world of work 4. Career development activities, career support and career progress 5. Health, subjective well-being, and support networks The project and data collection were led by Dr Golo Henseke as the Principal investigator. He is the primary contact. Professor Francis Green and Professor Ingrid Schoon guided and co-designed the survey at all stages of development. The project team was affiliated with IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society. The survey was carried out by Ipsos MORI UK. Funding for this research was provided by the Economic and Social Research Council, Grant No. ES/V01577X/1.This project Youth Economic Activity and Health (YEAH) addressed the UK's need for robust evidence on COVID-19's consequences for youth employment, learning and well-being. YEAH addressed five related research issues: 1. Successful transitions 2. Future planning and optimism 3. Learning 4. Internship and knowledge exchange 5. Youth employment support initiatives. To address some of the research questions, the project commissioned a survey of 16-25-year-olds in Britain, which is shared here. In all, the YEAH project provided valuable insights into the impacts of and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic on youth after effective vaccines had become available. We found a recovery in youth unemployment and life satisfaction across countries. For Britain, the recovery in life satisfaction was explained by increased social contacts, receding worries about career prospects and job skills learning, and opportunities for job skills learning. The project also examined the perceived effects of the pandemic on the learning of job skills and career planning in post-Brexit Britain over time and between groups of young people. The project emphasised the importance of social contacts, career prospects, job skills learning, and career preparation activities in supporting youth's well-being during and after the pandemic. The YEAH survey was a roughly quarterly quota panel study of 16–25-year-old UK residents recruited from web access panels managed by Ipsos Mori and partners. The first wave commenced in February 2021, with follow-up data collections in April/May-2021, July-2021, October-2021, February-2022, April/May-2022, and November-2022. The combined dataset includes 8,000 observations from 5,502 young people from across the UK. A quota sampling approach was chosen to recruit a balanced sample of a usually difficult-to-reach demographic during the second phase of the pandemic in the winter of 2020-2021. For the initial sample, quotas were set according to age within gender, working status and region. The survey sampled 1,000 young people in the first six waves. Follow-up samples were recruited among previous participants when possible and refreshed according to the quotas described above to make up for attrition when necessary. Over the first six waves, the longitudinal response rate was 45% on average. An extension (wave 6) was fielded with 2,000 observations in November 2022. Given the lockdown restrictions at the time and resource constraints, computer-assisted web interviewing was the only feasible data collection mode. The average completion time was about 10-13 minutes.

This zipped folder contains data from a study, by petroleum geoscience team at the BGS, which was created as part of the 21st Century exploration Roadmap (21CXRM).

The petroleum geoscience team worked with the UK Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), Oil and Gas UK and a consortium of over 45 oil companies to evaluate the remaining petroleum potential of previously overlooked or unfashionable areas of the UK Continental Shelf.

The 21st Century Exploration Roadmap (21CXRM): Palaeozoic Project is part of the UK Government's endeavour to maximise the economic recovery of hydrocarbons on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS), in response to the Wood Review.

A study of the Palaeozoic of the UKCS was one of the first projects to be implemented as part of the 21st Century Exploration Roadmap. Multidisciplinary studies further defined the Carboniferous and Devonian petroleum systems focused over and around the Mid North Sea High and northwards to the Orcadian Basin/East Shetland Platform. In the wider Irish Sea area, the focus was the Carboniferous play.

Coinciding with the release by OGA of the UK Government seismic across and around the Mid North Sea High frontier area, project results have been delivered digitally to project sponsors. They include seismic, well and gravity interpretations along with burial/uplift/maturity modelling, source rock geochemistry studies and palaeographic reconstructions to inform the location of prospective Carboniferous and Devonian plays. Onshore data and knowledge has been incorporated.

The results were published under the Open Government License in March 2017 and are loaded to the BGS Offshore GeoIndex.

Users should note that:

• These outputs are at a regional scale, created for project specific purposes and so should be used appropriately.
• They are not BGS corporate products, but peer-reviewed project outputs.

United Kingdom's main stock market index, the GB100, rose to 9177 points on August 14, 2025, gaining 0.13% from the previous session. Over the past month, the index has climbed 2.67% and is up 9.94% compared to the same time last year, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks this benchmark index from United Kingdom. United Kingdom Stock Market Index (GB100) - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on August of 2025.