Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 8 February 2024

• Fewer than 1 in 10 (7%) businesses with 10 or more employees experienced global supply chain disruption in December 2023; this is broadly stable with previous months.

• Nearly two-thirds (62%) of trading businesses reported that they were able to get the goods they needed from within the UK in December 2023 without any disruption, broadly stable with November 2023.

• The proportion of trading businesses with 10 or more employees that reported they were either importing less compared with the same calendar month a year ago, or were unable to import, rose from 18% in November 2023 to 21% in December 2023.

• In late January 2024, 19% of businesses with 10 or more employees reported they were experiencing worker shortages, broadly stable with late December 2023; of those businesses, 49% reported that their employees were working increased hours as a consequence.

The data presented in this bulletin are the final results from Wave 101 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), which was live from 22 January to 4 February 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. Data are plotted in the middle of each wave.

The percentage of businesses that reported they were trading in late January 2024 was 95%, with 86% fully trading and 10% partially trading (for example, trading with reduced hours or staff numbers). Meanwhile, 3% of businesses reported “temporarily paused trading” and 2% reported “permanently ceased trading” as their business’s trading status.

Global supply chain distribution

Businesses not permanently stopped trading were asked whether they had experienced any global supply chain disruption in December 2023.

The proportion of businesses with 10 or more employees that experienced global supply chain disruption in December 2023 was 7%. Although this figure has remained fairly stable in recent months, it rose by 2 percentage points from the 5% reported in November 2023.  

The percentage of businesses with 10 or more employees who reported experiencing no disruption has also seen a small increase between November 2023 (65%) and December 2023 (66%) with the "not applicable" response option seeing a downward movement over this period from 19% to 16%.  

Further details on global supply chain disruption, including all response options broken down by industry and size band, are available in our accompanying dataset. 

Intra-UK procurement 

Businesses not permanently stopped trading were asked whether they were able to get the materials, goods or services they needed from within the UK in December 2023.

In December 2023, the majority of trading businesses were able to obtain the materials, goods or services they needed from within the UK without experiencing any disruption (62%). An additional 6% were able to obtain what they needed but had to change suppliers or find alternative solutions to do so. These figures have remained broadly stable in recent months but have risen from 51% and fallen from 12%, respectively, from the equivalent time period a year ago.  

Further details on UK supply chains broken down by trading status, industry and size band, are available in our accompanying dataset.

Of currently trading businesses with 10 or more employees, 20% had exported and 24% imported in the last 12 months.

Those businesses that had either exported or imported, or both, in the last year were asked how their exporting and importing in December 2023 compared with December 2022.

Latest data suggest there was a rise from 18% in November 2023 to 21% in December 2023 in the proportion of importing businesses with 10 or more employees that have not been able to import or are importing less than they did a year ago. 

Of these businesses that imported in December 2023, 22% reported experiencing a change in transportation costs compared with the previous month, 18% reported a change in exchange rates, and 18% experienced additional paperwork.  

Further industry and size band breakdowns for all exporting and importing questions are available in our accompanying dataset.

Worker shortages

The proportion of businesses with 10 or more employees reporting worker shortages has shown a largely downward trend from the 37% reported when the question was introduced in October 2021 to the 19% reported in late January 2024.  

Of the 19% of businesses with 10 or more employees that reported worker shortages in late January 2024, nearly half (49%) reported employees were working increased hours because of the shortages. 

Other issues reported as a result of staff shortages were:

• unable to meet demands (37%) 

• had to recruit temporary workers (27%) 

• paused trading some of the business (9%) 

Further details on worker shortages, including its effects 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 100 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, 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 101 survey was live for the period 22 January to 4 February 2024. For full details of the survey questions used, see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey questions: 22 January to 4 February 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.