Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 8 January 2026

• Total UK retail footfall increased by 2% in the week to 4 January 2026, compared with the previous week, but decreased by 1% when compared with the equivalent week of 2025 (BT Active Intelligence).

• Almost two-thirds (65%) of trading businesses reported that they had cash reserves in late December 2025; this is up 3 percentage points from late September 2025, which had the lowest proportion of cash reserves reported since June 2020 (final results from Wave 147 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey).

• The number of firms reporting decreased turnover was 7% higher than those reporting increased turnover in November 2025; this is a 10 percentage point decrease from October 2025 (HM Revenue and Customs Value Added Tax returns).

• The System Average Price (SAP) of gas increased by 5% in the week to 4 January 2026, while the System Price of electricity increased by 12% in the same period; both decreased by 38% and 2%, respectively, compared with the equivalent week of 2025 (National Gas Transmission, Elexon).

• The seasonally adjusted number of daily UK flights decreased by 2% in the week to 4 January 2026, compared with the previous week, but increased by 3% when compared with the equivalent week of 2025 (EUROCONTROL).

• The number of Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPCs) lodged in England and Wales for new dwellings decreased from 929 to 556 (40%) in the week to 4 January 2026, compared with the previous week, but increased from 319 to 556 (74%) when compared with the equivalent week of 2025; this is in line with historical seasonal patterns (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 and our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: seasonal adjustment 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 changes to the intended release frequency of each dataset 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 8 January 2026.
• Advanced notification of potential redundancies dataset; updated 8 January 2026.
• System Average Price (SAP) of gas dataset; updated 8 January 2026.
• System Price of electricity dataset; updated 8 January 2026.
• Energy Performance Building Certificates (EPC) dataset; updated 8 January 2026.
• Weekly shipping indicators dataset; updated 4 December 2025.
• Daily UK flights dataset; updated 8 January 2026.

Monthly data release

• Monthly Direct Debit failure rate and average transaction amount dataset; updated 18 December 2025.
• Textkernel new online job adverts dataset; updated 18 December 2025.
• Value Added Tax (VAT) flash estimates dataset; updated 8 January 2026.
• Renter affordability for new tenancies dataset; updated 11 December 2025.
• UK new vehicle registration and production dataset; updated 11 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.