In the quarterly National Accounts that the ONS released this week, UK GDP growth in Q4-2025 was unchanged at +0.1%. However, due to some minor revisions in earlier quarters, the growth rate for the UK economy in 2025 has been edged up to +1.4% (from +1.3% in the first estimate). Manufacturing investment is estimated to have fallen by -0.8% in 2025, although spending by the Engineering & Vehicles industry grew by +3.7%.
Although the changes in the total economy are minor, there are more significant revisions at the sector level with the manufacturing sector seeing the most significant amendments which go back to 2024. In the first release of data, manufacturing output was estimated to have grown by +1.1% in 2024 before a contraction of -0.2% in 2025; the new figures have revised this to +0.5% and -0.9% respectively. We will have to wait for the detailed figures for manufacturing output which are due out in a couple of weeks to see which industries have been affected by these revisions.
There have also been some adjustments to the construction sector, with output in 2025 revised down to +1.2% (from +1.8% in the first estimate), with only a very minor adjustment to the 2024 figure. Growth in the service sector – which as the largest part of the UK economy has a biggest effect on the overall numbers – has been revised up to +1.5% in 2025 (from +1.4%), matching the unrevised rate in 2024.
For MTA Cluster members, the most important part of the National Accounts is the industry breakdown of the investment figures. A reminder that total business investment was +3.5% higher than in 2024, despite a quarter-on-quarter dip of -2.7% in the final period of the year. At the asset level, spending on “ICT & Other Machinery” (ICT&OM) grew by +9.8% last year, with the Q4 figure up by +2.9% compared to the previous quarter. None of these figures have been revised from the first estimate.
More importantly, the National Accounts are the first release to give us the data for the manufacturing sector and the sub-set of the “engineering & vehicles” industries. For the sector, investment fell -0.8% both for the 4th quarter (compared to Q3) and 2025 as a whole (over 2024). In contrast, although there was no change in the quarter-on-quarter trend for the “engineering & vehicles” group, it grew by +3.7% in 2025.
In 2025, spending on ICT&OM accounted for 26.9% of total business investment, with the manufacturing sector share slipping to 10.4% of the total – this is the lowest ratio since 2016. However, the “engineering & vehicles” industry group (which includes most of the customers for the manufacturing technology suppliers) made up 41.6% of total manufacturing investment – this is the highest ratio since this series began in 2005.
You can download the ONS Statistical Bulletin for the National Accounts from their website at https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar (31 March) or request it from MTA.