GDP monthly estimate, UK: February 2023

• Monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have shown no growth in February 2023, where falls in services and production were offset by growth in construction. This follows growth of 0.4% in January, revised up from growth of 0.3% in the previous publication.

• Looking at the broader picture, GDP grew by 0.1% in the three months to February 2023.

• The services sector fell by 0.1% in February 2023, after growing by 0.7% in January 2023, revised up from 0.5% in the previous publication.

• The largest contributions to the fall in services output in February 2023 came from education and public administration and defence; compulsory social security, industrial action took place in both of these industries in February 2023.

• Output in consumer-facing services grew by 0.4% in February 2023, this follows growth of 0.3% in January 2023 (unrevised from our previous publication); the largest contributor to this growth came from retail trade, except for motor vehicles and motorcycles.

• Production output fell by 0.2% in February 2023, following a fall of 0.5% in January 2023, revised from a fall of 0.3% in the previous publication.

• The construction sector grew by 2.4% in February 2023, after falling by 1.7% in January 2023 (unrevised from the previous publication).

Monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have been flat in February 2023 (Figure 1) following a growth of 0.4% in January 2023, revised up from 0.3% in our previous publication. Monthly GDP is now estimated to be 0.3% above its pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) levels (February 2020).

Output by the services sector fell by 0.1% in February 2023 and production output fell by 0.2%. These falls were offset by growth of 2.4% in the construction sector.

Looking more broadly, GDP grew by 0.1% in the three months to February 2023 when compared with the three months to November 2022. Services grew by 0.1% in the three months to February 2023, while production fell by 0.1% and construction grew by 0.9% in this period.

Monthly GDP grew by 0.5% in February 2023 compared with the same month last year. For comparison, monthly GDP grew by 0.4% between January 2022 and January 2023, revised up from flat in our previous publication.

Services fell by 0.1% in February 2023, following growth of 0.7% in January 2023. Figure 3 shows the contributions from the services sector to gross domestic product (GDP) in February 2023.

The largest contributor to the negative growth in services in February 2023 was education, which fell 1.7% in a month where teacher strikes took place. This decline follows growth of 2.5% in January 2023. On the three months to February 2023, compared with the three months to November 2022, education fell by 1.9%.

Public administration was the second largest contributor, falling by 1.1% in February 2023. This industry also saw industrial action take place within the civil service during February 2023.

These falls were partially offset by growth in 6 of the 14 services sub-sectors. The largest contributors to this were human health and social work activities and other service activities, which grew by 0.3% and 2.0% respectively.

The growth in human health and social work activities was driven by the human health industry, which grew by 0.5% in February 2023. On the three months to February 2023, compared with the three months to November 2022, human health output fell by 3.1%, partially because of industrial action.

Within other service activities, repair of computers and personal and household goods grew by 7.4% and other personal service activities grew by 2.1%.

Output in financial and insurance services and arts, entertainment and recreation grew by 0.2% and 1.6% respectively.

NHS Test and Trace services and COVID-19 vaccination programmes

NHS Test and Trace and coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination programme activity fell by 19.0% in February 2023 for its fourth consecutive monthly fall (Figure 4) and remains significantly lower than its peak towards the end of 2021. Overall, NHS Test and Trace and the COVID-19 vaccination programme contributed an estimated 0.0 percentage points to monthly GDP growth.

A full record of the volume estimates of NHS Test and Trace and COVID-19 vaccination programmes, along with their contribution to GDP growth, can be found in our accompanying dataset.

Consumer-facing services

Output in consumer-facing services grew by 0.4% in February 2023, following growth of 0.3% in January 2023. Consumer-facing services were 8.9% below their pre-coronavirus levels (February 2020) in February 2023, while all other services were 2.2% above (Figure 5).

The largest contribution to the growth in consumer facing services in February 2023 came from retail trade except motor vehicles and motorcycles. This grew by 1.2% in February 2023, the largest growth since October 2022. More detail on this industry can be found in our Retail Sales, Great Britain: February 2023 bulletin.

Growth was also seen in other personal services (2.1%) and food and beverage services (0.4%), which both contributed to the overall growth in consumer-facing services.

The largest negative contributors were travel agency, tour operator and other reservation services and wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which fell by 1.9% and 0.6% respectively.

Overall, the services sector grew by 0.1% in the three months to February 2023 compared with the three months to November 2022, with positive growth in half of the 14 services sub-sectors.

More detailed breakdowns on services are available in our Index of Services, UK: February 2023 bulletin.

Production output fell by 0.2% in February 2023, after a fall of 0.5% in January 2023, revised from a 0.3% fall in our previous publication. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply fell by 2.2% and was the largest contributor to the fall in February 2023.

Manufacturing remained flat in February 2023 and saw declines in 7 of its 13 sub-sectors (Figure 7). The manufacture of chemicals and chemical products, which fell by 2.5%, was the largest negative contributor followed by the manufacture of electrical equipment (down 4.6%) manufacture of wood and paper products, and printing (down 1.8%). Meanwhile, manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products was the largest positive contributor (up 2.9%), followed by the manufacture of transport equipment (up 1.5%).

Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply was the largest negative contributor, falling by 2.2% with falls in both the manufacture of gas and electric power generation, transmission and distribution, falling by 3.6% and 1.6% respectively. This fall in February is partly caused by unseasonal higher than average temperatures during February 2023 reducing demand.

Mining and quarrying was the only positive contributor to production, growing by 3.0% in February 2023. This was driven by extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas with growth of 3.1% in February after falls of 4.9% in January 2023 and 5.6% in December 2022.

Water supply and sewerage fell by 1.3% in February 2023, with falls in sewerage (down 2.9%) and water collection, treatment and supply (down 1.4%).

Overall, production decreased by 0.1% in the three months to February 2023, compared with the three months to November 2022, driven primarily by mining and quarrying, which fell by 4.5%.

More detailed breakdowns on production are available in our Index of Production, UK: February 2023 bulletin.

Monthly construction output is estimated to have increased by 2.4% in volume terms in February 2023; this follows a 1.7% fall in January 2023. This means February 2023 had the highest monthly value in level terms (£15,558 million) since records began in January 2010.

The increase in monthly construction output came from increases in both repair and maintenance (4.5%) and new work (1.1%) on the month, with eight out of the nine sectors seeing an increase on the month.

At the sector level, the main contributors to the monthly increase were seen in private housing repair and maintenance and non-housing repair and maintenance, which increased 5.0% and 3.7%, respectively. Anecdotal evidence received from returns for the Monthly Business Survey (MBS) for Construction and Allied Trades suggested several reasons for the rise in February 2023. The increase was partially driven by a bounce back from the fall in January 2023, but also continued strength across repair and maintenance sectors. Many firms also noted an improvement of weather in February 2023, which allowed them to get more work done. This was confirmed in the Met Office's Monthly climate summary (PDF, 4.7MB).

Further detail on construction output growth rates, along with new orders in the construction industry and construction output prices, can be found in our Construction output in Great Britain: February 2023 bulletin.

There were some common themes that were anecdotally reported (as part of the Monthly Business Survey) to have played a part in performance across different industries. However, it is often difficult to quantify these effects.

There was anecdotal evidence, reported on monthly business survey returns, to suggest that industrial action in February 2023 had a notable impact on different industries of varying degrees. These included the health sector (nurses and the ambulance service), the civil service, the education sector (teachers and university lecturers) and the rail network. According to the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), industrial action also contributed to businesses operating capacity. One in nine businesses (12%) were directly or indirectly affected by industrial action, with 3 in 10 (30%) of those businesses reporting that they were unable to fully operate as a consequence.

An unseasonably mild and dry February 2023, as seen in the Met Office's Monthly climate summary (PDF, 4.7MB), also played a part in boosting output for some industries most notably in arts, entertainment and recreation. To offset this, the warmer weather is likely to have contributed to the falls seen in electric and gas production.

This release gives data for February 2023 for the first time. January 2023 is also open for revisions, taking on updated survey data. Revisions to monthly data from January 2022 to December 2022 published in our GDP quarterly national accounts, UK: October to December 2022 bulletin published on 31 March 2023 are also included.

The next monthly gross domestic product (GDP) release on 12 May 2023 will have January and February 2023 open for revision in line with the National Accounts Revision Policy.

Contribution to growth

Contribution to growth indicates how many percentage points a sector or industry is adding or removing from a given growth rate, usually headline gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

Gross domestic product (GDP)

A measure of the economic activity produced by a country or region. GDP growth is the main indicator of economic performance. There are three approaches used to measure GDP:

• the output approach 

• the expenditure approach 

• the income approach

Index numbers

Data relative to a given base value, which typically refers to a year.

Rolling three-month growth

Rolling three-month growth takes the average level of three consecutive months (for example, April, May and June), and compares it with the average level of the previous three months (for example, January, February and March). The rolling three-month growth rate is often used alongside the monthly growth rate, as the latter can be more volatile.

Real GDP

Real GDP excludes any inflationary issues and reflects the changes in volume terms. This can also be referred to as volume estimates of GDP. For further definitions, please see our Glossary of economic terms.

Further information on measuring the data across our main data sources is available in the following releases:

• Construction output in Great Britain: February 2023 

• Index of Production, UK: February 2023 

• Index of Services, UK: February 2023 

There have been large movements in UK gross domestic product (GDP) over the course of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This is primarily in response to public health restrictions and voluntary social distancing that have been in place over this period. Given the size of these effects, there has been a focus on where the economy is relative to its pre-coronavirus pandemic levels.

In the UK, we produce estimates of monthly and quarterly GDP. However, there are reasons as to why these would not provide the same estimate as to where the economy is relative to its pre-pandemic levels. This primarily reflects that monthly estimate of GDP are based on only the output measure of GDP, while quarterly estimates of GDP reflect the average of the three approaches (output, income, and expenditure).

However, the coronavirus pandemic has brought many measurement challenges that have created more uncertainty around our three approaches. This has led to an initial divergence between the output and average estimate, which is then reflected in how we compare monthly and quarterly estimates of GDP. Further information is available in our Measuring monthly and quarterly UK gross domestic product during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic article.

Estimates for the construction industry within monthly GDP will differ to those published in the construction output release as they account for both the outputs produced and inputs consumed by the industry. There are also some coverage differences given the use of the Annual Business Survey in their compilation.

Within the monthly GDP publication, government data are sourced on a quarterly basis; a monthly forecast is used to estimate data for the monthly round until quarterly data are available. This is a standard practice with many of our data sources, pre-empting the behaviour of a series during a pandemic. However, in particular for health and education, it comes with more uncertainty than usual, so caution is advised when looking at the monthly estimates beyond the latest published quarter.

We are aware of reclassifications or relocations of companies that may impact these published estimates of GDP and associated breakdowns. We are monitoring the data and will seek to implement any resulting changes into the national accounts as soon as possible.

Additional bank holiday in September 2022 for the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II

An additional bank holiday was announced for the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, which occurred on 19 September 2022. This resulted in one fewer working day in September 2022, which may affect GDP estimates. Past experience with similar events in 2002 and 2012, as described in Section 3 of A guide to interpreting monthly gross domestic product, highlighted the possibility of fluctuations in monthly GDP.

While adjustments are made for regular calendar effects, there was no explicit adjustment for this ad hoc event. However, the timing of the bank holiday indirectly affects the number of trading days, which could affect GDP estimates positively or negatively, depending on the sector. We reviewed the trading day patterns of all industries to ensure the genuine activity from the bank holiday was reflected in our published GDP seasonally adjusted estimates. Caution is advised when interpreting seasonally adjusted movements involving September and October 2022, and rolling three-month estimates.

Quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Gross domestic product (GDP) QMI.

Monthly growth rates can be volatile. This indicator should therefore be used with caution and alongside other measures, such as the three-month growth rate, when looking for an indicator of the medium-term trend of the economy. However, it is useful in highlighting one-off changes that can be masked by three-month growth rates.

The latest comparisons of month on same month a year ago should be treated with caution given the impact of base effects on growth rates because of the economic impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic throughout 2020 and 2021. Such comparisons and growth rates can be found in our accompanying dataset.