The headline figures for monthly GDP that the ONS reported this morning showed no growth in the UK economy in January, although the 3-month rolling trend was an increase of +0.2%, thanks mainly to a relatively good month in November (which will drop out of that calculation next month).
We will focus on the rolling 3-month trends which show that, in addition to the growth of +1.5% in the manufacturing sector that we report in a separate article, services also picked up slightly with growth of +0.2% in the period to January having been flat in the 3 months up to December 2025; construction output continues to fall, with a decline of -2.0% in the latest period.
Before looking at these other sectors, it is worth noting that within the wider definition of production, the improvement for manufacturing was supported by growth of +2.2% in “electricity, gas, steam & air conditioning supply” but tempered by falls of -0.5% in “water supply; sewerage, waste management & remediation activities” and of -0.1% in “mining & quarrying” (extraction) in the 3 months to January 2026.
For services, output grew in 7 of the 14 sub-sectors with the largest contributions coming from “wholesale & retail trade; repair of motor vehicles & motorcycles” (+1.0%), driven by a growth in the “wholesale trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles industry” (which was the largest positive contribution to the growth in services output by a single industry), “information & communication” (+0.8%) and “transportation & storage” (+1.1%). The main negative among the subsectors were declines in output for “real estate activities” (-0.2%), “accommodation & food service activities” (-0.7%) and “arts, entertainment & recreation” (-1.1%).
Consumer-facing services saw output unchanged in the 3 months to January 2026 (compared to the previous period up to October 2025) thanks to the declines in the “wholesale & retail” and “accommodation” groups which were balanced but not outweighed by increases for “other personal services”, “sports & recreation activities” and “travel agencies”.
The fall in output in the construction sector in the latest 3-month period (-2.0% was concentrated in “new work” where activity was down by -3.2%, while “repairs & maintenance” only declined by -0.4%. Within “new work”, the largest negative contributor was “private housing new work” which was down by -6.3%; for “repair & maintenance”, the largest reduction came from “public housing repair & maintenance” (-2.6%).
There are more details in the range of ONS Statistical Bulletins which can be downloaded from their website at https://www.ons.gov.uk/releasecalendar (13 March) or on request from MTA.