For a few years now the ONS has been going beyond its traditional measures of productivity to look at how individual firms are performing. In this blog Sumit Dey-Chowdhury explains how these data, updated today, are produced and what they tell us about changes in the UK economy.
Read more on How firm-level data improves our understanding of productivity
Back in March 2020, life changed very suddenly as COVID-19 struck. In the first days of lockdown the ONS set up what it thought would be a temporary rapid business survey to assess how the pandemic was impacting UK businesses. Gemma Rabaiotti explains how four years and 100 waves of responses later, the Business Impact of Coronavirus survey– now renamed the Business Insights and Conditions survey – (BICS) has cemented its place as a timely and vital voice on the challenges facing businesses today.
Read more on A voice for UK businesses – a milestone for our business insights survey
Many economic forces are global, but some of the solutions to issues like competitiveness, productivity and inequality often begin on…
Read more on Unlocking the potential of local data
The ONS has published updated and indicative estimates of GDP, which show that the economy was larger than we previously thought in 2020 and 2021, though our estimate for the UK’s monthly and quarterly economic trends is broadly unchanged. Craig McLaren explains what’s led to this brighter picture.
Read more on Improving our estimate of businesses’ outgoings during the COVID-19 pandemic
For the first time the ONS has published new data on UK Direct Debits. This new, fast and anonymised data source provides insight on consumer payments to most of the UK’s largest companies. Dragos Cozma describes how the ONS has developed this new data source with our partners at Vocalink and Pay.UK and what it tells us about the UK economy.
Read more on Direct Debits data reveal fresh economic insights
