Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 22 January 2026

In December 2025:

• Seasonally adjusted Direct Debit data showed that average transaction amounts were broadly unchanged, compared with November 2025; the failure rate increased by 1% over the same period (Vocalink and Pay.UK). Section 3: Consumer behaviour.

• Total UK retail footfall increased by 2%, compared with November 2025, but decreased by 1% when compared with December 2024 (BT Active Intelligence). Section 3: Consumer behaviour.

• The number of potential redundancies decreased by 29% compared with November 2025; over the same period, a net 2% of firms reported an increase in turnover, up 8 percentage points from last month (Insolvency Service HR1 forms, HM Revenue and Customs Value Added Tax returns). Section 4: Business and workforce.

• The System Average Price (SAP) of gas decreased by 4%, compared with November 2025, while the System Price of electricity remained broadly unchanged over the same period; the SAP of gas and the System Price of electricity decreased by 36% and 13%, respectively, when compared with December 2024 (National Gas Transmission, Elexon). Section 5: Energy.

• The seasonally adjusted number of UK flights increased by 1% compared with November 2025 and increased by 2% when compared with December 2024 (EUROCONTROL). Section 6: Transport.

• The seasonally adjusted number of new vehicle registrations increased by 4% compared with November 2025 and increased by 3% when compared with December 2024. Section 6: Transport.

• The seasonally adjusted number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) lodged in England and Wales for new dwellings increased by 11%, compared with the previous month, and increased by 9% when compared with December 2024 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government). Section 7: Housing.

Notes:

1. Card spending over time is pushed upwards by the impacts of both inflation on value of transactions and cash-to-card conversion. 

2. Indicators with "SA" in the title have been seasonally adjusted. Indicators with "NSA" in the title have not been seasonally adjusted but do present seasonality. All other indicators do not present seasonality. 

3. Existing Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) data can show sudden spikes when housing associations lodge multiple expired EPCs at once.

December 2025 saw an increase in retail footfall compared with the previous month, but a small decrease when compared with the previous year. Direct Debit failure rates continued to increase month-on-month while Direct Debit average transaction amounts remained stable.

UK retail footfall

UK retail footfall increased by 2% in December 2025, compared with November 2025, but decreased by 1% when compared with December 2024.

Footfall increased in two of the three site types, compared with November 2025; town and city centres increased by 6% and retail parks increased by 2%. Footfall in district or local centres decreased by 2%.

When compared with December 2024, decreases in footfall were seen in district or retail parks (6%) and local centres (4%), while footfall in town and city centres increased by 4%.

Retail footfall increased in 11 of the 12 regions (including UK countries and English regions) in December 2025, compared with November 2025. The largest increases in footfall were in Northern Ireland (8%), East of England (6%) and the North East (6%). London was the only region to see a decrease in footfall (2%) over the same period.

When compared with December 2024, retail footfall decreased in 9 of the 12 regions. The largest decreases over this period were in Northern Ireland (10%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (5%). Increases in footfall were seen in Scotland (8%), Wales (3%) and London (2%).

Figure 2: Retail footfall decreased in all but three UK regions in December 2025 compared with December 2024

Change in retail footfall by region, UK, December 2025, non-seasonally adjusted

Notes:

1. Details of the methods used to compile these data are available in the BT Active Intelligence methodology. 

2. Data are available in further detail, broken down by region and site type, in our accompanying UK retail footfall dataset.

Monthly Direct Debit average transaction amount and failure rate

The seasonally adjusted total Direct Debit average transaction amount remained broadly unchanged in December 2025, compared with November 2025. The average transaction amounts for "Electricity and gas" and "Water" increased by 1%, but for "Loans" and "Fitness facilities" it decreased by 3% and 2%, respectively. The average transaction amount for "Mortgages" remained broadly unchanged.

The seasonally adjusted Direct Debit average transaction amount increased by 3% when compared with December 2024. "Water" remained the category with the largest year-on-year increase, rising by 28% from December 2024. "Loans" and "Electricity and gas" decreased by 5% and 3%, respectively, over the same period.

The seasonally adjusted Direct Debit failure rate increased by 1% in December 2025, compared with November 2025. "Electricity and gas" and "Mortgages" saw the largest increases of 9% and 5%, respectively. Failure rates over this period decreased only in "Water", by 1%.

The seasonally adjusted Direct Debit failure rate increased by 11% when compared with December 2024. Year-on-year increases were seen across all major categories, "Electricity and gas" (37%), "Loans" (14%), "Fitness facilities" (10%), "Water" (9%), "Other" (9%) and "Mortgages" (5%).

The monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount are anonymised and aggregated datasets made available to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) by Pay.UK and Vocalink. The data are unadjusted for inflation and reflect economic activity in nominal terms.

For further details on what is covered within this indicator, see our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology.

Our accompanying Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset is available.

December 2025 saw a reduction in the number of potential redundancies, compared with the previous month, in line with normal seasonal patterns. VAT reporters saw a bounce back to normal month-on-month turnover.

Value Added Tax flash estimates

Turnover diffusion indices are an aggregate measure used to track whether most firms are reporting an increase or decrease in turnover in their Value Added Tax (VAT) returns. They are calculated as the percentage of firms with increasing turnover, minus the percentage of firms with decreasing turnover. 

VAT returns are forms submitted by businesses to HMRC that detail how much VAT they have charged (turnover VAT), and how much they have paid to other businesses (expenditure VAT). This dataset only uses VAT returns received within the first seven days after each reporting month to allow for early (flash) estimates. This accounted for approximately 9,520 businesses in December 2025. Quarterly or annual reporting businesses are not included, as they do not file returns every month and are not part of the flash estimate pipeline.

Figure 5: The number of firms reporting an increased turnover was 2% higher than those reporting a decreased turnover in December 2025, up 8 percentage points from November 2025

Weighted Value Added Tax (VAT) month-on-month turnover diffusion indices, UK, January 2023 to December 2025, seasonally adjusted

Notes:

1. These data are current price, so they may reflect elements of inflation. 

2. The shaded areas represent the 95% confidence limits. 

3. The confidence limits are 1.96 standard deviations of the seasonally adjusted series, centred around zero. If a data point is outside of these limits, it is a statistically significant difference.

A net 2% of firms reported an increase in turnover in December 2025, an 8-percentage point increase from November 2025, returning the index to within the normal range, following the large fall in November 2025.

The services sector, the largest contributing sector to gross domestic product (GDP), had a net 2% of firms reporting an increase in turnover in December 2025, compared with the previous month. This is a 10-percentage-point increase from November 2025, returning to within normal month-on-month variation.

The construction sector also increased in December 2025, following the fall in November 2025. A net 1% of firms reported decreased turnover, up 5-percentage points from November 2025 and back to within normal month-on-month variation.

The production sector continued to decrease, a net 2% of firms reported a decrease in turnover when compared with the previous month. This is a 2-percentage point decrease from November 2025 and within normal month-on-month variation.

The agriculture sector fell 7 percentage points to a net 11% of firms reporting a decreased turnover. This is outside of normal month-on-month variation, and the lowest index value since September 2023, when extreme weather substantially reduced crop yield.

Advanced notification of potential redundancies

The number of potential redundancies decreased by 29% in December 2025 compared with the previous month. 

The "Construction" industry reported the largest increase in the number of potential redundancies, climbing by 267% in December 2025 from November 2025, and as an industry, contributed 18% towards all potential redundancies. The only other industry to report an increase in the number of potential redundancies over the same period was "Manufacturing", which increased by 9%.

The largest decreases in the number of potential redundancies in December 2025 were in "Energy and Water", down 80% and "Public Administration, Education and Health", down 60% from November 2025.

When compared with December 2024, the number of potential redundancies increased by 10%.

The number of employers proposing redundancies decreased by 37% in December 2025 compared with the previous month but increased by 2% when compared with December 2024.

"Construction" was the industry that saw the largest relative year-on-year increase in December 2025, with the number of employers proposing redundancies doubling from December 2024. The only two other industries where the number of employers proposing redundancies in December 2025 was higher than in December 2024 were "Distribution, Hotels and Restaurants" (11%) and "Public Administration, Education and Health" (18%).

For more information, our accompanying Advanced notification of potential redundancies weekly dataset is available. Industry and regional breakdowns by month are available in our monthly potential redundancies dataset.

System Average Price of gas and System Price of electricity

The System Average Price (SAP) of gas decreased by 4% in December 2025, compared with November 2025, from 2.561 pence per kilowatt hour (p/kWh) to 2.449p/kWh and decreased by 36% when compared with December 2024, which had a monthly SAP of 3.828p/kWh.

The System Price of electricity remained broadly unchanged for the second month in a row in December 2025, compared with November 2025, decreasing slightly from 7.584p/kWh to 7.548p/kWh. The price decreased by 13% when compared with December 2024, which had a monthly price of 8.642p/kWh.

Changes in the System Average Price (SAP) of gas and the System Price of electricity are considered by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) when setting the energy price caps for the next three months. Large changes in these prices can indicate that the future price cap set by Ofgem will change.

Our accompanying System Average Price of gas dataset and System Price of electricity dataset are available.

New vehicle registrations

The seasonally adjusted number of new vehicle registrations increased by 4% in December 2025 compared with November 2025, following two consecutive monthly decreases. The largest increase in new registrations over this period was in private cars, which rose by 10%, followed by light commercial vehicles (LCVs) increasing by 7%, whereas registrations of fleet and business cars remained broadly unchanged.

The seasonally adjusted number of new registrations for plug-in hybrid cars saw the largest increase in December 2025, climbing by 18% from November 2025, followed by diesel cars, which increased by 5% over the same period.

The seasonally adjusted proportion of new registrations that were internal combustion (petrol or diesel) cars decreased by 1 percentage point to 50%, meaning that electric vehicles (Battery Electric, Hybrid, Plug in Hybrid) made up half of all new car registrations in December 2025.

Our accompanying SMMT vehicle production and registrations dataset is available.

UK flights

The seasonally adjusted number of UK flights increased by 1% in December 2025 compared with the previous month and was 2% higher than December 2024.

Our accompanying Daily UK flights dataset is available.

Energy Performance Building Certificates

The seasonally adjusted number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) lodged in England and Wales for new dwellings increased by 11% in December 2025, compared with the previous month. When compared with December 2024, they increased by 9%.

The seasonally adjusted number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) lodged in England and Wales for existing dwellings decreased by 1% in December 2025, compared with the previous month, and decreased by 5% when compared with December 2024.

Our accompanying Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's Weekly EPCs for domestic properties dataset are available.

This section lists a selection of data available in this publication. For the full list of available datasets, please see our 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 estimates, which represent useful economic and social concepts.

Seasonal adjustment

Seasonal adjustment is the identification and removal of consistent and systematic variation in time series associated with the time of year. For more information on seasonal variation, and how we implement seasonal adjustment, see Section 2 of our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology article.

Official statistics in development

These statistics are labelled as official statistics in development. Until September 2023, these were called "experimental statistics". Read more about the change in our Guide to official statistics in development.

We are developing how we collect and produce the data to improve the quality of these statistics. Find out more in our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators methodology article.

Once the developments are complete, we will review the statistics with the Statistics Head of Profession. We will decide if the statistics are of sufficient quality and value to be published as official statistics, or if further development is needed. Production may be stopped if they are not of sufficient quality or value. Users will be informed of the outcome and of any changes.

We value your feedback on these statistics. If you would like to get in touch, please email realtime.indicators@ons.gov.uk.

Dataset release dates and intended release frequency

Latest release dates and intended release frequency of our associated datasets are available in this section. Please note that there may be some change to the intended release frequency for a variety of reasons, such as data availability. If you would like further information about any of these datasets, or previous release dates, please email realtime.indicators@ons.gov.uk.

Weekly data release

• Revolut spending on debit cards dataset; updated 27 November 2025.

• Automotive fuel spending dataset; updated 8 January 2026.

• UK retail footfall dataset; updated 22 January 2026.

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 22 January 2026.

• System Average Price of gas dataset; updated 22 January 2026.

• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 22 January 2026.

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 22 January 2026.

• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 4 December 2025.

• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 22 January 2026.

Monthly data release

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 15 January 2026.

• Textkernel new online job adverts dataset; updated 18 December 2025.

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 15 January 2025.

• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 15 January 2025.

• SMMT vehicle registration and production dataset; updated 15 January 2025.

Strengths and limitations

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

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.

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.