Business insights and impact on the UK subnational single-site economy: July 2022

• Between January and June 2022, there has been a rise in the proportion of single-site businesses reporting an increase in the prices of goods or services bought in all UK countries; Wales reported the largest increase, at 26 percentage points, and the largest proportion in June 2022, at 56%.

• In June 2022, 20% of businesses reported increases in the prices of goods or services sold, slightly down from highs in March 2022, with all UK countries reporting rises since January 2022; businesses in Wales saw the highest proportion reporting increases in prices sold, at 28%.

• In early June 2022, 14% of UK single-site businesses reported experiencing worker shortages, 2 percentage points higher than in early May 2022; Northern Ireland and Wales saw 3 percentage point falls between early March and early June 2022, while Scotland and England saw slight increases; the highest proportion of worker shortages being reported by single-site businesses was 23% in Northern Ireland.

• England reported the highest percentage of its workforce either working from home or using a hybrid model of working in June 2022, at 33%, with London seeing the highest proportion of any region at 53%.

• Our interactive maps in Sections 3 and 4 allow users to explore how business impacts differ by geography, based on Wave 17 to 60 weighted single-site estimates.

Figure 1: Interactive map, which shows single-site subnational estimates for increases in prices bought and sold at ITL 2 level

Prices bought and sold, single-site businesses not permanently stopped trading, broken down by region, UK, 14 June 2021 to 30 June 2022

Notes:

1. Weighted single-site estimates, Wave 34 to Wave 60 of the Office for National Statistics’ Business Insights and Conditions Survey.

2. Data that have been removed for confidentiality reasons. This includes percentages less than 1%, breakdowns with a count of 10 or less, and breakdowns with a micro business count of 10 or less (a micro business has less than 10 employees).

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Prices bought

Between January and June 2022 there was a rise in the percentage of UK single-site businesses not permanently stopped trading who reported an increase in the prices of goods or services bought, from 33% to 50%.

All four UK countries reported a rise of at least 16 percentage points between January and June 2022, with Wales reporting the largest increase, at 26 percentage points.

In June 2022, Wales reported the highest proportion of single-site businesses that experienced an increase in prices of goods or services bought, at 56%, 7 percentage points above the UK average when accounting for rounding. The country with the lowest proportion reported was Scotland, at 49%.

England reported a series high of 50%. Northern Ireland, at 53%, was down from a high in April 2022; Wales and Scotland were down from highs in May 2022.

Prices sold

In June 2022, all UK countries reported a rise in single-site businesses that experienced an increase in the prices of goods or services sold, in comparison with January 2022. The UK single-site average rose by 5 percentage points, and the country reporting the largest rise was Wales at 14 percentage points.

Similar to the prices of goods or services bought, the largest rises in the proportion of businesses reporting that prices sold had increased were seen between January and March 2022. Each UK country experienced increases in the range of 7 to 18 percentage points.

Wales reported the highest proportion of single-site businesses that experienced an increase in prices of goods or services sold in June 2022, at 28%. The country with the lowest proportion reported was Scotland, at 18%. Wales, Northern Ireland and England all reported slight falls in proportion from series highs in April 2022 and Scotland was 4 percentage points down from a peak in May 2022. The UK average percentage reported in June 2022 was 20%; down from 23% in April and May 2022.

Figure 4: The West Midlands reported the highest percentage of single-site businesses seeing increases in the prices of goods or services in June 2022

Prices bought and sold increased, single-site businesses not permanently stopped trading, broken down by country and region, weighted by count, UK, 1 June to 30 June 2022

Notes:

1. For presentational purposes, some response options have been excluded.  
2. From Wave 55, the question changed to ask about a specific calendar month rather than “over the last month, compared with normal price fluctuations" in relation to the time of completion.

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In June 2022, the West Midlands was the English region that reported the highest proportion of single-site businesses experiencing increases in prices of goods or services bought and sold, at 60% and 28% respectively. In contrast, London was the region reporting the lowest proportion for prices bought and sold, at 36% and 13% respectively.

The large percentage rises in businesses reporting increases in prices of goods or services bought and sold between January and February 2022 within England were most noticeable in the North East. However, since then, the West Midlands has seen the largest increases in businesses reporting rises between February and June 2022 of 28 and 12 percentage points, respectively, for prices bought and sold.

Between January and June 2022, the services sector saw an increase of 18 percentage points in the proportion of businesses reporting prices of goods or services bought had increased. There was a 7 percentage point increase for prices sold during the same period.

All regions with a sufficient response to analyse experienced a rise in this sector for increases in prices bought in this period. For prices sold, the only regions which did not report an increase, were the East of England and Yorkshire and the Humber.

The biggest percentage rises, by region, for increases in prices bought in the services sector were:

• Northern Ireland – 28 percentage points

• North West – 27 percentage points

• South West – 25 percentage points

The biggest percentage rises, by region, for increases in prices sold in the services sector were:

• Wales – 23 percentage points

• South West – 16 percentage points

• Northern Ireland – 15 percentage points

Figure 5: Interactive map, which shows single-site subnational worker shortage estimates at ITL 2 level

Worker shortages, single-site businesses not permanently stopped trading, broken down by region, UK, 18 October 2021 to 12 June 2022

Notes:

1. Weighted single-site estimates, Wave 42 to Wave 58 of the Office for National Statistics’ Business Insights and Conditions Survey.

2. Data that have been removed for confidentiality reasons. This includes percentages less than 1%, breakdowns with a count of 10 or less, and breakdowns with a micro business count of 10 or less (a micro business has less than 10 employees).

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In early June 2022, single-site businesses not permanently stopped trading in the UK were asked if they were experiencing a shortage of workers:

• 14% reported they were experiencing worker shortages

• 58% reported they were not experiencing worker shortages

• 4% reported they were not sure

• 24% reported the question was not applicable to them

Of single-site businesses in Northern Ireland, 23% reported experiencing worker shortages, 9 percentage points higher than the UK average. Since late January 2022, Northern Ireland has seen an increase in reports of worker shortages of 10 percentage points.

Single-site businesses within England reported a percentage of worker shortages in early June 2022 broadly stable with a high in late November 2021, at 14%. Northern Ireland saw its largest percentage in early March 2022, at 26%, Scotland in late January 2022, at 17%, while in late February 2022, Wales saw its highest proportion of businesses reporting worker shortages, at 23%.

Figure 7: The North East was the English region that reported the highest proportion of single-site businesses experiencing worker shortages, at 21%

Worker shortages, percentage of single-site businesses not permanently stopped trading, broken down by region and sector, weighted by count, 30 May to 12 June 2022

Notes:

1. For quality purposes, all industries have been collated to construction, production (including: 2-digit SIC 5 to 39, inclusive), and services (including: 2-digit SIC 45 to 98, inclusive) and construction and production have been combined.

2. “*” represents data that have been removed for disclosure purposes. This includes percentages less than 1%, breakdowns with a count of 10 or fewer, and breakdowns with a micro business count of between 1 and 10. (Micro business have fewer than 10 employees).

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In early June 2022, the North East reported the highest proportion of single-site businesses of any English region experiencing worker shortages, at 21%. In contrast, the region that reported the lowest proportion was the East Midlands, at 9%.

Between late January and early June 2022, the West Midlands reported an 8 percentage point increase in the proportion of single-site businesses experiencing a shortage of workers, the highest of any English region.

The construction and production sectors reported a proportion of businesses with worker shortages 9 percentage points higher than the all industries average.

Approximately a quarter (25%) of services sector businesses in the North East reported they experienced worker shortages, the highest of any region in England.

In June 2022, approximately 31% of UK single-site businesses’ workforce were reported as either working from home or using a hybrid model of working. England was the country with the highest proportion reported, at 33%, with Northern Ireland reporting the lowest proportion, at 18%. The proportions for all countries have remained broadly stable with what was reported in mid-January 2022.

Across all sectors, since mid-January 2022 London has continued to see a much higher proportion of the workforce working from home or using a hybrid working model than other regions. In June 2022, the proportion was at 53% for all industries, 18 percentage points above the next highest region. Compared with mid-January 2022, the East Midlands reported a 6 percentage point increase in the proportion of the workforce reported to be working from home or using a hybrid model and the South West a 4 percentage point decrease. All other regions reported broadly stable figures.

Services sector businesses in London, the East Midlands, and Wales reported an increased proportion of their workforce working from home or using a hybrid model compared with mid-January 2022. The North East reported a fall, while all other regions in this sector reported broadly stable proportions over this time period.

Coronavirus

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause disease in people and animals. They can cause the common cold or more severe diseases, such as COVID-19.

COVID-19

COVID-19 is the name used to refer to the disease caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus, which is a type of coronavirus. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) takes COVID-19 to mean presence of SARS-CoV-2 with or without symptoms.

Reporting unit

The business unit to which questionnaires are sent is called the reporting unit. The response from the reporting unit can cover the enterprise as a whole or parts of the enterprise identified by lists of local units.

This article uses microdata from the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) to help understand business impacts on the subnational UK economy. It predominately focuses on Wave 48 to 60 of BICS (10 January to 10 July 2022), covering the period since the last edition of this article.

The Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) is voluntary, and the results are experimental.

In addition to single-site subnational estimates, we also provide multi-site subnational estimates. The multi-site methodology can be found in our Understanding the business impacts of local and national restrictions, UK: July 2021 article and further detail behind these estimates is presented in our accompanying datasets.

All current BICS subnational estimates should be treated as experimental estimates and caution is advised when interpreting the figures, as BICS results are weighted by industry and by size band but not by region. Multi-site regional results are produced by apportionment by region rather than weighting by region.

The make-up of single-site businesses that responded within a certain region and wave can have an impact on subnational BICS estimates. This should be considered when interpreting results. Details of the make-up of single-site businesses can be found in our accompanying dataset.

The results in this release are likely to reflect structural differences between countries and regions, as well as differences in the nature and timing of coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions.

Subnational BICS estimates

Subnational BICS estimates have been created by using the results collected in the fortnightly BICS survey. Each survey return from each reporting unit is then applied to the reporting unit's one local site. We have removed businesses with multiple sites from the sample and results in this analysis are based on single-site businesses only (as identified on the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR)). Sections 2 and 3 of our Business insights and impact on the UK and sub-national economy: 9 December 2022 article outline in detail the methodology behind our single-site subnational estimates, and its impact compared with previously published results encompassing all businesses.

Aggregates of International Territorial Level (ITL 1) regions such as the UK or England may have higher or lower response proportions than any of their constituent regions because of differences in the sample composition in terms of company workforce.

Because the larger aggregate regions (such as the UK or England) generally have a larger proportion of smaller companies, if there is a substantial difference between the response proportions of larger and smaller companies, this will be reflected in the top-line figures.

Weighting

Single-site estimates in this release are weighted, ensuring estimates are representative of all single-site businesses. A detailed description of the weighting methodology and its differences to unweighted estimates is available in Business Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey (BICS): preliminary weighted results.

Weighted estimates for Scotland for businesses with greater than nine employees are available from the Scottish Government.

Single-site sample

While the single-site approach is not representative of all UK businesses (as it excludes businesses with multiple sites), weighted single-site estimates are representative of all UK single-site businesses and approximately 98% of all businesses (and half of total UK turnover and employment). The accompanying datasets show how the composition by region and industry when using the single-sites approach holds up, when compared with all businesses sample.

Measuring the data

The BICS survey is voluntary and may only reflect the characteristics of those that responded. More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI, updated on 24 January 2022.

The homeworking figures presented in this article will differ from the estimates published in the Homeworking in the UK – regional patterns: 2019 to 2022 article because of different data sources, methodology and response rates in regions.