In the fourth quarter of 2024, approximately 271,000 job-to-job resignations took place in the United Kingdom, compared with 182,000 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.

This statistic displays the turnover of the United Kingdom's aerospace, defense, security and space industries from 2014 to 2020. Combined, these sectors were worth 85.1 billion British pounds in 2020, with the security and resilience industry having seen the greatest increase in generated turnover.

Compass Group had by far the highest number of global employees among companies based in the United Kingdom as of 2024, at approximately 500,000 employees. Tesco had the second-highest number of employees at 345,000, followed by HSBC Holdings which had 213,978 employees. As of the same year, HSBC Holdings had an annual revenue of 144.9 billion U.S. dollars, the third-highest among UK-based companies. The oil and gas giant Shell had the highest annual revenue at 289.7 billion dollars, ahead of BP at 202.8 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 In some ways, the UK economy is in a reasonably good position in 2024. There was moderate economic growth in the first half of the year, inflation has returned to more usual levels, and unemployment has remained low. According to the business confidence index, however, the current sentiment among businesses in September 2024 was lower than it has been since early 2021. Furthermore, the number of company insolvencies in England and Wales has steadily been increasing, with 25,000 taking place in 2023, and 22,000 in 2022, compared with just 14,000 in 2021. When SME leaders were asked in 2023, what the main obstacles to running their business were, 36 percent said increasing costs. 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 2020, the UK defense industry generated turnover to the value of 25.3 billion British pounds. The UK is the world's second largest defense exporter after the United States.

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

In January 2025, the employment rate in the United Kingdom was 74.9 percent, up from 74.7 percent in the same period a year earlier. 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, the employment declined to 74.6 percent by January 2021. Although not quite at pre-pandemic levels, the employment rate has since recovered. Hot UK labor market cools in 2023 Although unemployment in the UK spiked at 5.1 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. While wage growth has also been strong since 2022, these gains were cancelled-out for a long period between 2021 and 2023 when inflation grew faster than wages. By July 2023, unemployment had bounced back to 4.3 percent, while the number of job vacancies fell below one million in August 2023 for the first time since August 2021. UK in recession at end of 2023 Although the UK labor market has loosened since 2022, it has generally remained in good health, with unemployment low by historical standards. Inflation also fell throughout 2023, from 10.1 percent at the beginning of the year, to four percent by December. Getting inflation down to more acceptable levels, however, came at the expense of raising the Bank of England's already high-interest rate throughout 2023. The knock-on effect of higher borrowing costs likely did little to spur economic growth that year, with GDP growing by just 0.1 percent in 2023. Even this meager economic growth was only achieved due to growth in the first half of the year. In the second half of 2023, the economy shrank in two consecutive quarters, meaning the UK is officially in recession heading into a probable election year.

The wholesale and retail trade sector in the United Kingdom had a combined turnover of more than 1.8 trillion British pounds in 2024, more than double that of the manufacturing sector, the sector with the second-highest turnover at 608.15 billion pounds.

The annual turnover of hotel and similar accommodation enterprises in the United Kingdom increased dramatically from 2021 to 2022. In 2022, the hotel industry generated a turnover of approximately 22.99 billion British pounds, which denoted an increase of 46 percent from the previous year.

In the financial year 2020/21 ending on January 31, 2021, Morrisons generated a turnover of almost 17.6 billion British pounds in the United Kingdom. As a rough reference, the entire grocery market in the UK was estimated to be worth 212 billion pounds in 2021.

Morrisons presence in the UK

Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc primary business is grocery retail. However, the company owns 18 manufacturing sites for fresh food, which makes the company the second largest fresh food manufacturer in the UK. Besides its almost 500 stores the company also operated 339 petrol stations and was the 8th largest petrol station operator in the UK in 2020.

Morrisons’ performance

The company operated at a net profit before exceptionals of 651 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.

The transport industry in the United Kingdom generated over 234.5 billion British pounds in turnover in 2022. Of this, over 9.85 billion British pounds was generated through warehousing and support activities, making this the most profitable transport sector.

In the United Kingdom, the revenue of the legal services sector grew more than threefold since 2000, reaching a value of over 47 billion British pounds in 2023. 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.

In 2009, beer manufacturers in the UK produced a turnover of just under 7.7 billion British pounds. Ten years later, in 2019, that figure had increased to around 8.5 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 nine billion pounds.

The turnover of enterprises in the food and beverage service industry in the United Kingdom varied by sector from 2015 to 2022. Restaurants and mobile food services generated the highest income with a turnover of approximately 50 billion British pounds in 2022. Other sectors include beverage serving activities (pubs, bars and licensed clubs), event catering and other food services. In total, revenues of the UK food service industry valued 87.15 billion British pounds in 2022.

The number of employees working in the construction industry in the United Kingdom has fluctuated significantly between 2019 and 2024. The most recent data shows that there were 2.06 million people working in the construction sector. Most employees in the UK construction industry are men, according to the same source.

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 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 restaurants and mobile food services in the United Kingdom amounted to over 50 million British pounds. Based on figures reaching back to 2008, this was an all-time high. Number of outlets on the rise While turnover in the restaurants and mobile food industries increased between 2021 and 2022, the number of enterprises in these industries declined slightly in 2022 over the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of food and drink premises in Great Britain has been on a general trend of decline since 2019. How much money do consumers spend on eating out in the UK? In 2020/21, the average expenditure per person on eating and drinking outside the home in the UK decreased dramatically to less than four British pounds. While this recovered somewhat in 2021/22, rising to nearly nine British pounds, expenditure remained significantly lower than in 2019/20, when it amounted to over 15 British pounds.