Business insights and impact on the UK economy: 7 May 2026

• In late April 2026, 38% of businesses with 10 or more employees reported that they were concerned about international conflict impacting supply chains over the next year, broadly stable from March, but a 28 percentage point rise from December 2025; 25% were concerned about the impact of shipping disruption, a rise of 4 percentage points from March, and 18 percentage points from December 2025. 

• In late April 2026, 22% of trading businesses with 10 or more employees reported that they had exported goods, services, or both in the last 12 months; 28% reported that they had imported goods, services, or both in the last 12 months.

• Around two in five (39%) trading businesses with 10 or more employees that had exported reported that their exporting costs had increased in March 2026 compared with March 2025; this was an increase of 9 percentage points from December 2025, and the highest proportion since September 2023.

• More than two in five (44%) trading businesses with 10 or more employees that had imported reported that their importing costs had increased in March 2026 compared with March 2025; this was an increase of 14 percentage points since December 2025, and the highest proportion since June 2023.

• In late April 2026, of the 17% of trading businesses that reported that they had sold goods or services to customers in other UK nations in the last 12 months, 19% cited transport costs as a challenge experienced while doing so, a rise of 7 percentage points from January 2026 and the highest proportion since January 2023; a number of businesses cited increased fuel costs as a reason for this when invited to comment.

The data presented in this bulletin are the final results from Wave 155 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), which was live from 20 April to 3 May 2026.

This wave of the survey asked businesses questions about:

• exporting and importing including rules of origin

• UKCA markings

• supply chains

• domestic trade

• international trade, including EU trade, US trade and US tariffs.

For full details of the survey questions used, see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey questions: 20 April to 3 May article. 

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 142 are available in our Business insights and impact on the UK subnational single-site economy: November 2025 article.

The percentage of businesses that reported they were trading in late April 2026 was 93%, with 84% fully trading, and 10% 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.

Access to microdata

You can access the microdata for Waves 1 to 154 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 researcher accreditation using the People and Projects Service (PPS). For further guidance, please see our Information on the Integrated Data Service (IDS) website. 

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. Project accreditation applications should be submitted using the Project Accreditation Service for SRS (PASS). For more information, please see our guidance on applying for an accredited research project.

To use the SRS, you must access it through the appropriate safe setting. For more information on the full range of safe setting options, please see our guidance on accessing data securely.

Making our published spreadsheets accessible

Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets, we will be amending our published tables over the next couple of publications to improve the usability, accessibility, and machine readability of our published statistics. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at bics@ons.gov.uk.

Private sector businesses

The Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) is a survey of private sector businesses, meaning that the public sector is not sampled. Some businesses are also excluded; please see the Coverage section of this bulletin for more information.

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.

Trading businesses    

Trading businesses refers to businesses that responded that their trading status was "currently fully trading" or "currently partially trading" only.  

If trading businesses is not exactly specified, the statistics presented refer to businesses that have "not permanently stopped trading". This includes trading businesses, and those that said their trading status was "paused trading and intends to restart in the next two weeks" or "paused trading and does not intend to restart within the next two weeks".

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 10 October 2024.

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 155 survey was live for the period 20 April to 3 May 2026. For full details of the survey questions used, see our Business Insights and Conditions Survey questions: 20 April to 3 May 2026 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 Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) QMI report.