Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 4 December 2025

• Total UK retail footfall increased by 3% in the week to 30 November 2025, compared with the previous week, but decreased by 7% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (BT Active Intelligence).

• In late November 2025, 35% of businesses with 10 or more employees reported that their staffing costs (including wages, bonuses, national insurance (NI) and pension contributions) had increased over the last 3 months; this is down 13 percentage points compared with late August 2025 but a 3 percentage point rise compared with late November 2024 (final results from wave 145 of the Business Insights and Conditions survey).

• The System Price of electricity and the System Average Price (SAP) of gas decreased by 16% and 6%, respectively, in the week to 30 November 2025, compared with the previous week; the System Price of electricity and the SAP of gas also both decreased by 28% and 35%, respectively, when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (Elexon, National Gas Transmission).

• The number of ship visits to major UK ports increased by 1% in the week to 30 November 2025, compared with the previous week, but decreased by 5% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (exactEarth).

• The seasonally adjusted number of daily UK flights remained broadly unchanged in the week to 30 November 2025, compared with the previous week, but decreased by 1% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (EUROCONTROL).

• The seasonally adjusted number of new vehicles produced in the UK increased by 4% in October 2025, compared with the previous month, but decreased by 35% when compared with October 2024, following a phased recovery from a cyber incident in September 2025 (based on original data from The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT)).

• The number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) lodged in England and Wales for new dwellings increased by 6% in the week to 30 November 2025, compared with the previous week, but decreased by 10% when compared with the equivalent week of 2024 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government).

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 Building Certificate (EPC) data can show sudden spikes when housing associations lodge multiple expired EPCs at once.

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 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 4 December 2025. 

• UK retail footfall dataset; updated 4 December 2025. 

• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 4 December 2025.  

• System Average Price (SAP) of gas dataset; updated 4 December 2025. 

• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 4 December 2025. 

• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 4 December 2025. 

• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 4 December 2025.  

• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 4 December 2025. 

Monthly data release 

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 13 November 2025.  

• Textkernel new online job adverts dataset; updated 23 October 2025.  

• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 20 November 2025.  

• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 13 November 2025. 

• UK vehicle registration and production dataset; updated 4 December 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.