The publication of the UK National Accounts by the ONS for the 2nd quarter included the annual rebasing exercise which moved this to 2023. There are some modest revisions to the historical GDP data back to 1992; however, with the 2024 trend unchanged at +1.1%, we note that 2023 is now estimated to have been +0.3% (revised from +0.4%) and 2022 is now +5.1% (revised from +4.8%).
There are also some revisions for the manufacturing sector and, as is often the case, these are more substantial than the adjustments to the overall GDP data. We won’t get the industry breakdown until the monthly output data for August is published but the annual changes in total manufacturing output since the pandemic in 2020 are summarised as follows:
| Year-on-Year trend in UK Manufacturing Output | ||
| Year | 2022 based data | Revised 2023 based data |
| 2020 | +2.2% | -0.8% |
| 2021 | +3.8% | +5.3% |
| 2022 | -7.4% | -2.6% |
| 2023 | +1.0% | +1.8% |
| 2024 | 0.0% | +0.5% |
With the exception of 2020, which is now weaker than before (this is probably realistic given the impact of the pandemic), all of the other years have been revised up. Indeed, the sharp downturn in 2022 is now much more modest and it will be interesting to see the industry structure of these revisions.
Turning to the more recent data where it is the normal revision process at play rather than the re-basing exercise, there are no changes to the quarter-on-quarter estimates of growth in 2025, with Q1 still at +0.7% and Q2 at +0.3%. However, thanks to small changes to 2024, the annualized rate of GDP growth (comparing Q2-2025 with a year earlier) has been revised up to +1.4% (from +1.2% in the first estimate).
For the manufacturing sector, total output has been edged down to +0.2% (from +0.3%) for the quarter-on-quarter trend for the latest period; there is a more substantial revision for the 1st quarter which is now estimated to have grown by only +0.3% (compared to Q4-24) rather than +1.0% in the first release of the quarterly data. Similarly, but in contrast to the GDP data, the annualized trend up to Q2-2025 has been revised down to +0.4% (from +1.0% in the first data release).
You can download the ONS Statistical Bulletin for the National Accounts from their website at https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar (30 September) or request it from MTA.