Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 14 July 2022

• Consumer behaviour indicators showed mixed activity this week, with UK seated diners falling by 3 percentage points, and “park” and “transit station” visits increasing by 8% and 2%, respectively. UK credit and debit card purchases increased by 3 percentage points in the latest week, with “work-related” spending (which includes spending on road fuel) up 7 percentage points (OpenTable, Google Mobility, Bank of England CHAPS data).

• Half (50%) of currently trading businesses reported an increase in the prices of goods or services bought in June 2022, broadly stable compared with May 2022; in comparison, the percentage of businesses who reported an increase in the prices of goods or services sold (20%) continued to steadily decrease, down from 24% in March 2022 (final results from Wave 60 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS)).

• The total volume of online job adverts on 8 July 2022 decreased slightly from the previous week to 126% of its February 2020 pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic average level; London had the largest decrease in the latest week falling by 5%, while at the UK level the "marketing, advertising and PR" and "creative, design and arts & media” categories fell by 11% and 10%, respectively (Adzuna).

• Transport indicators showed a varied picture this week with total ship visits, and cargo and tanker ship visits decreasing by 5% and 8%, respectively; meanwhile, daily UK flights and road traffic were both broadly unchanged from the previous week (exactEarth, EUROCONTROL, Department for Transport).

• The System Average Price (SAP) of gas increased by 33% in the week to 10 July 2022, increasing to 45% of the peak level seen on 10 March 2022 (National Grid).

Notes:

1. The break in the available shipping data (from 14 to 19 June 2021) is when the data collection system changed.

2. Shipping data for 9 to 21 May 2022 have been removed because of technical issues.

Users should note that this section lists a selection of the data available with this publication. For the full list of available datasets please see the accompanying dataset page.

Real-time indicator

A real-time indicator provides insights into economic activity using close-to-real-time big data, administrative data sources, rapid response surveys or Experimental Statistics, which represent useful economic and social concepts.

Information on the methodology used to produce the indicators in this bulletin is available in the Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology.

These statistics have been produced to provide timely indicators of the effect of developing world events on the UK economy and society, using close-to-real-time big data, administrative data sources, rapid response surveys or Experimental Statistics.

The data presented in this bulletin are reviewed and refreshed on a regular basis. Indicators are swapped in and out of the publication based on their suitability and availability.

UK coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions

A full overview of coronavirus restrictions for each of the four UK constituent countries can be found:

• coronavirus in England

• coronavirus in Scotland

• coronavirus in Wales

• coronavirus in Northern Ireland

These restrictions should be considered when interpreting the data featured throughout this bulletin.

Seasonality

Seasonal fluctuations are likely to be present in many of these indicators so caution must be applied when interpreting changes in series that are not seasonally adjusted.