United Kingdom GDP Annual Growth Rate

Last Release

Dec 31, 2023

Actual

-0.2

Units In

0.6

Frequency

Quarterly

Next Release

Jun 28, 2024

Time to Release

2 Months 30 Days 6 Hours

Highest	Lowest	Average	Date Range	Source
24.6 Jun 2021	-21.2 Jun 2020	2.33 %	1956-2023	Office for National Statistics

The United Kingdom is the sixth largest economy in the world and the second largest in Europe after Germany. The Services sector is the most important and accounts for 79 percent to total GDP. The biggest segments within Services are: government, education and health (19 percent of total GDP); real estate (12 percent); professional, scientific and technical activities and administrative and support services (12 percent); wholesale and retail trade (11 percent); and financial and insurance (8 percent). Industry accounts for 21 percent of the GDP and the largest segments within this sector are: manufacturing (10 percent of total GDP) and construction (6 percent). The Agriculture sector accounts for only 1 percent of GDP.

Latest Updates

The British economy contracted by 0.2% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2023, marking its first period of shrinkage since the 2020-21 recession, primarily driven by high inflation, soaring borrowing costs, and sluggish external demand. Notably, net trade exerted downward pressure on GDP, with exports plunging by 7.6% for a second consecutive quarter of decline, while imports fell by 1.5%, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of decrease. Meanwhile, household consumption saw a slight increase of 0.3% (vs 0.2% in Q3), and fixed investment grew by 0.5% (vs 0.1% in Q3), bolstered by a notable 2.8% surge in business investment. Furthermore, government consumption growth accelerated to 2.5% from 1.9%. Looking at the full year of 2023, the economy expanded by a meager 0.1%. This followed a robust growth rate of 4.3% in 2022, marking the weakest annual growth since the 2009 financial crisis, excluding the pandemic-hit year of 2020.