Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 21 March 2024

• The proportion of trading businesses that reported a decrease in turnover fell from 26% in January 2024, to 22% in February 2024; in contrast, 55% reported that their turnover stayed the same, which is up 5 percentage points over the same period. 

• When asked in early March 2024, one in five (20%) trading businesses expect their turnover to increase in April 2024, which is down 2 percentage points from expectations for March 2024.

• Since March 2022, the proportion of trading businesses reporting an increase in the prices of goods or services bought month on month has dropped by 26 percentage points, to 24%.

• Nearly one in five (18%) trading businesses expect to raise the prices of goods or services that they sell in April 2024, this is up 2 percentage points from expectations for March 2024, but down 6 percentage points on expectations for April 2023.

• Nearly half (47%) of trading businesses reported that they were not considering raising prices in April 2024, which is broadly stable with March 2024.

• Nearly one in five (18%) trading businesses reported that their overall performance had decreased in February 2024 compared with the same calendar month last year, which is down 4 percentage points from January 2024.

The data presented in this bulletin are the final results from Wave 104 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), which was live from 4 March to 17 March 2024.

The data reported within BICS bulletins and datasets are estimates that are subject to uncertainty, for example, sampling variability and non-sampling error. Further information on quality is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey Quality and Methodology Information (QMI), and we regularly update confidence intervals associated with the survey questions.

Single-site weighted regional estimates up to Wave 92 are available in our Business insights and impact on the UK subnational single-site economy: November 2023 article.

Figure 1: Headline figures from the Business Insights and Conditions Survey

Notes:

1. For presentational purposes, some response options have been combined, excluded, or both.
2. For presentational purposes, "Prices" data show an increase to prices bought and sold compared with the previous calendar month.
3. Data are plotted in the middle of each wave.

The percentage of businesses that reported they were trading in early March 2024 was 94%, with 85% fully trading, and 9% partially trading (for example, trading with reduced hours or staff numbers). Meanwhile, 4% of businesses reported “temporarily paused trading”, and 2% reported “permanently ceased trading” as their business’s trading status.

Turnover

Trading businesses were asked how their turnover in February 2024 compared with January 2024, excluding any seasonal trading.

When reporting on their actual turnover for February 2024, 16% of businesses reported that their turnover had increased from the previous calendar month. This is slightly lower than the 18% of businesses who expected their turnover to increase in February 2024 when asked in early January 2024. This suggests businesses were optimistic for February 2024, but their expectations were not fully met.

However, when looking ahead to April 2024, 20% of businesses expect their turnover to increase, and 10% expect their turnover to decrease. This suggests businesses continue to be optimistic about the months ahead.

In early March 2024, more than a third (35%) of businesses reported that they were not experiencing any challenges that would have an impact on their turnover, which is broadly stable with early February 2024.

Of those businesses that reported a challenge, 24% reported economic uncertainty as the main reason. Other businesses reported that challenges affecting their turnover included:

• cost of materials (18%)
• competition (17%)
• insufficient domestic demand (14%)

Further details on financial performance, including all response options broken down by industry and size band, are available in our accompanying dataset.

Prices bought and prices sold

Businesses not permanently stopped trading were asked how the prices of goods or services they bought and sold in February 2024 compared with January 2024.

A lower proportion of trading businesses reported an increase in the prices of goods or services bought and sold in February 2024 when compared with January 2024. There were small falls to 24% and 10%, respectively, following the rises in January 2024.

Further response options broken down by industry and size bands can be found in our accompanying dataset.

Prices expectations

Businesses not permanently stopped trading were asked what their expectations were for the prices of goods or services they sell in April 2024.

When asked in early March 2024, the proportion of businesses that expect the prices of goods or services they sell to rise was 18%. The proportion of businesses that expect the prices to stay the same was 58%, while those who expect the prices to decrease was 2%. These figures remained broadly stable with expectations reported for March 2024.

Businesses were also asked which, if any, factors were causing them to consider raising prices in April 2024. While 48% were not considering raising prices, the top reasons reported for doing so were:

• labour costs (23%), broadly stable with March 2024

• energy prices (21%), up 2 percentage points from March 2024

• raw material prices (18%), broadly stable with March 2024

Global supply chain distribution

Businesses not permanently stopped trading were asked whether they had experienced any global supply chain disruption in February 2024.

The percentage of businesses with 10 or more employees who reported experiencing global supply chain disruption in February 2024 was 7%, broadly stable with January 2024. 

Of those businesses with 10 or more employees that reported issues, 50% reported the conflict in the Middle East as the main reason for their disruption. The other most reported reasons included:

• a shortage of materials (12%)
• the UK exiting the EU (9%)

Further details, including the full list of response options broken down by industry and size band, are available in our accompanying dataset.

Access to microdata

You can access the microdata for Waves 1 to 103 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) through the Secure Research Service (SRS). The BICS microdata for each wave are released on a rolling basis in the week following the publication of each wave. The microdata are made confidential and do not disclose information on any specific business. 

Only researchers accredited under the Digital Economy Act, as explained on the UK Statistics Authority website are able to access data in the SRS. You can apply for accreditation through the Research Accreditation Service (RAS). You need to have relevant academic or work experience and must successfully attend and complete the assessed Safe Researcher Training. 

To conduct analysis with microdata from the SRS, a project application must be submitted to the Research Accreditation Panel (RAP), as explained on the UK Statistics Authority website. To access the SRS, you must also work for an organisation with an Assured Organisational Connectivity agreement in place.

Reporting unit

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

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI, which was updated on 24 January 2022. 

The BICS is voluntary, and the results are official statistics in development. More information is available in our Guide to official statistics in development.

The results are based on responses from the voluntary fortnightly BICS, which captures businesses' views on financial performance, workforce, prices, trade and business resilience. The Wave 104 survey was live for the period 4 March to 17 March 2024. For full details of the survey questions used, see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey questions: 4 March to 17 March 2024 article. 

Coverage

The BICS sampling frame is based on the same industries as our Monthly Business Survey (MBS). The MBS covers the UK for production industries only, and Great Britain for construction, retail and services industries. The MBS is an important input to the output measure of gross domestic product (GDP), which includes monthly GDP. 

For detailed information on the industries covered by the MBS and BICS, see our GDP(o) data sources catalogue. The following are some industries that are excluded from MBS and BICS:

• agriculture 
• oil and gas extraction 
• energy generation and supply 
• public administration and defence 
• public provision of education and health 
• finance and insurance 

For more information on the methodology of producing the BICS, such as weighting, please see our BICS QMI report.

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI.