In the second quarter of 2025, approximately 263,000 job resignations took place in the United Kingdom, compared with 220,000 in the previous quarter. The number of resignations in Q2 2022 was the highest number taking place in a single quarter during this provided time period, reaching 446,000. In most years, there is a noticeable trend of resignations peaking in the fourth quarter of the year and being at their lowest in the first quarter. There is also a significant fall in people resigning from their jobs after the 2008 financial crisis and after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The Great Resignation The high number of resignations that took place after COVID-19 hit also occurred in the United States. Throughout 2022, approximately 50 million American workers quit their jobs in a trend dubbed 'The Great Resignation' In both the UK and U.S. the trend corresponded with a very tight labor market. After emerging from the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, UK unemployment declined from 2021 onwards, falling to a low of just 3.6 percent in August 2022. There were also numerous job vacancies, which peaked in May 2024 at 1.3 million, though by the end of 2024, both indicators have returned to more typical levels. Labor market concerns for 2025 One of the main concerns of the UK government regarding the labor market is economic inactivity, in particular the reason for this inactivity, Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people on long-term sick-leave, has increased substantially. At the start of 2020, there were approximately 2.12 million people economically inactive for this reason, with this increasing to almost 2.84 million by the end of 2023, with this declining only slightly to 2.77 million by the end of 2024. It is unclear if there is one overriding factor driving this surge, with possible causes including the prevalence of Long COVID, or the ongoing NHS crisis.

In June 2025, the employment rate in the United Kingdom was 75.3 percent, up from 75.2 percent in the previous month. After almost dropping below 70 percent in 2011, the employment rate in the United Kingdom started to climb at a relatively fast pace, peaking in early 2020. Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, employment declined to 74.6 percent by January 2021. Although not quite at pre-pandemic levels, the employment rate has since recovered. Labor market trouble in 2025? Although unemployment in the UK spiked at 5.3 percent in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, it fell throughout most of 2022, to just 3.6 percent in August 2022. Around that time, the number of job vacancies in the UK was also at quite high levels, reaching a peak of 1.3 million by May 2022. The strong labor market put employees in quite a strong position, perhaps encouraging the high number of resignations that took place around that time. Since 2023, however, the previously hot labor market has cooled, with unemployment reaching 4.6 percent in April 2025 and job vacancies falling to a four-year low of 736,000 in May 2025. Furthermore, the number of employees on UK payrolls has fallen by 227,500 in the first five months of the year, indicating that 2025 will be a tough one for the labor market. Headline economic measures revised in early 2025 Along with the unemployment rate, the UK's inflation rate is also expected to be higher than initially thought in 2025, reaching a rate of 3.2 percent for the year. The economy will also grow at a slower pace of one percent rather than the initial prediction of two percent. Though these negative trends are not expected to continue in the long term, the current government has already expended significant political capital on unpopular decisions, such as the cutting of Winter Fuel Payments to pensioners in 2024. As of June 2025, they are almost as unpopular as the previous government, with a net approval rating of -52 percent.

Numbers of enterprises and local units produced from a snapshot of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 8 March 2024.

The wholesale and retail trade sector in the United Kingdom had a combined turnover of more than *** trillion British pounds in 2024, more than double that of the manufacturing sector, the sector with the second-highest turnover at ****** billion pounds.

The transport industry in the United Kingdom generated over ***** billion British pounds in turnover in 2022. Of this, over **** billion British pounds was generated through warehousing and support activities, making this the most profitable transport sector.

Compass Group had by far the highest number of global employees among companies based in the United Kingdom as of 2025, at approximately 500,000 employees. Tesco had the second-highest number of employees at around 336,400, followed by HSBC Holdings which had 211,000 employees. In the same year, HSBC Holdings had an annual revenue of 142.3 billion U.S. dollars, the third-highest among UK-based companies. The oil and gas giant Shell had the highest annual revenue at over 283 billion dollars, ahead of BP at 189 billion dollars. How many businesses are there in the UK? In 2024, there were approximately 5.5 million business enterprises in the UK, down from a peak of 5.98 million in 2020. Although there were just 1,930 large firms that employed 1,000 people or more, these firms employed more than a quarter of the UK's private sector workforce, and made a combined turnover of approximately 1.69 trillion British pounds. As of this year, the construction industry had the highest number of enterprises by sector, at over 870,000. The sector with the most workers was that of wholesale and retail, which collectively employed just under 4.9 million people in 2024, and also had the highest turnover compared to other sectors, at over 1.8 trillion pounds. Current UK economic climate Although the UK economy is expected to grow in 2025, growth has been downgraded from earlier forecasts, while inflation and unemployment are expected to be higher than initially thought. According to the business confidence index, sentiment among businesses at the end of 2024 was lower than it has been since early 2021. Furthermore, since the start of 2025, businesses have been shedding jobs at an accelerating rate, possibly due to recent tax rises, which was seen as the main external concern of businesses in early 2025. The precarious state of the UK's government finances, and potential tax rises in the next budget, are also likely feeding into this pessimistic mood.

In the financial year 2020/21 ending on ****************, Morrisons generated a turnover of almost **** billion British pounds in the United Kingdom. As a rough reference, the entire grocery market in the UK was estimated to be worth *** billion pounds in 2021.

Morrisons presence in the UK

Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc primary business is grocery retail. However, the company owns ** manufacturing sites for fresh food, which makes the company the second largest fresh food manufacturer in the UK. Besides its almost *** stores the company also operated *** petrol stations and was the *** largest petrol station operator in the UK in 2020.

Morrisons’ performance

The company operated at a net profit before exceptionals of *** million pounds. However, net profits were cut in half between 2012 and 2016 and have only slightly recovered since then. The coronavirus pandemic had a profound effect on the grocery market and Morrisons; after struggling with sinking sales in the second half of 2019, the company saw unprecedented growth throughout 2020.

In 2022, there were over 859,000 employees in the restaurant and cafe sectors in the United Kingdom. This was an increase of nearly four percent from the previous year.

Annual estimates of foreign-owned businesses by industry group, section, employment and turnover group, and country breakdown.

There were approximately 133,000 people directly employed by the defense industry in the United Kingdom in 2020. This was a decrease of 17 percent since the beginning of the reporting period in 2010. According to the UK trade organization representing the aerospace/space, defense and security sectors, the country is currently the second largest exporter of defense equipment and services in the world. The greatest share of which was meant for the air defense market.

Defense industry’s output value

In 2020, the UK defense industry was worth 25.3 billion British pounds in turnover. It was the only sector within the aerospace and defense segment which had not seen noticeable increases in annual turnover since 2014. By comparison, the closely related Security & Resilience sector had seen a more prominent increase in turnover.

Workforce by function

The greatest share of those employed in the defense industry worked in production and assembly functions. This was closely followed by those employed in research, design and engineering.

In the United Kingdom, the revenue of the legal services sector grew more than ********* since 2000, reaching a value of over ** billion British pounds in 2024. Despite the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the legal services sector was not negatively impacted, unlike many others. The revenue registered in 2020, in fact, was a slight increase when compared to 2019, with the growth of the industry being exponential since then.

This statistic shows the annual turnover of the United Kingdom's (UK) aerospace industry from 2010 to 2020. In the period of consideration, aerospace turnover has presented a general trend of growth despite some oscillations. In 2020, turnover dropped to **** billion British pounds.

The turnover of enterprises in the food and beverage service industry in the United Kingdom varied by sector from 2015 to 2023. Restaurants and mobile food services consistently generated the highest income, with a turnover of approximately ** billion British pounds in 2023. Other sectors include beverage serving activities (pubs, bars and licensed clubs), event catering and other food services. In total, the turnover of the UK food service industry stood at ***** billion British pounds in 2023.

In 2009, beer manufacturers in the UK produced a turnover of just under *** billion British pounds. Ten years later, in 2019, that figure had increased to around *** billion British pounds. 2020 saw a large decline in turnover due to the COVID-19 pandemic but a new high was reached in 2022 at over **** billion pounds.

In 2022, the turnover of the public relations (PR) and communications industry in the United Kingdom (UK) stood at four billion British pounds. A year earlier, it took at 3.34 billion pounds. The industry bounced back after a COVID-19-related slump in 2020.

In 2022, the turnover of the advertising industry (advertising agencies and media representation businesses) in the United Kingdom (UK) stood at 46.1 billion British pounds. A year earlier, it stood at 39.18 billion pounds. The industry bounced back after a COVID-19-related slump in 2020.

The turnover of the printing and reproduction of recorded media industry in the United Kingdom declined to 12.2 billion euros in 2018. The turnover thereby reached its lowest value in recent years. Turnover is defined by Eurostat as the total of all sales (excluding VAT) of goods and services carried out by the enterprises of a given sector during the reference period.Find more statistics on other topics about the United Kingdom with key insights such as turnover of the ships and boats building industry, production value of the motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers manufacturing industry, and production value of the manufacture of domestic appliances industry.