Index of Services, UK: April 2026

• Services output in the three months to April 2026 was estimated to have increased by 0.8% compared with the three months to January 2026; this follows 0.8% growth in the three months to March 2026.

• 12 of the 14 sectors saw a rise in the three months to April 2026, with the main positive contributing sectors being “information and communication” (up 1.7%), “wholesale and retail trade” (up 1.2%) and “professional, scientific and technical activities” (up 1.3%).

• Of the 2 remaining sectors in the three months to April 2026, there was a fall in “arts, entertainment and recreation” (down 0.5%), whereas “administrative and support service activities” had no growth (0.0%).

• Monthly services output was estimated to have decreased by 0.2% in April 2026; this is the first fall in the monthly data series since October 2025 (down 0.2%).

• There were monthly decreases in 8 of the 14 sectors in April 2026; the largest negative contributions on the month came from “administrative and support service activities” (down 2.2%), “arts, entertainment and recreation” (down 4.3%) and “wholesale and retail trade” (down 0.4%); overall some of these falls are likely to be attributed to the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East affecting UK-based businesses.

• There were monthly increases in 5 of the 14 sectors (1 industry saw no growth) in April 2026, with “information and communication” (up 1.1%) and “transport and storage” (up 1.4%) providing the largest positive contributions.

Response rates for April 2026

The response rates for April 2026 were 70.2% based on forms returned. This accounted for 84.3% of total turnover coverage of the sample population. For further information, see our Current and historical Monthly Business Survey (MBS) (services) response rates dataset.

Data sources and collection

The Index of Services (IoS) is compiled using data from several different sources (share of overall economy based on latest gross value added (GVA) weights). These include the:

• Office for National Statistics (ONS) MBS (34.9%)     
• ONS Retail Sales Inquiry (4.8%)    
• ONS Government Expenditure (15.3%)     
• ONS Households’ Expenditure (11.2%)     
• ONS Finance Expenditure (8.0%)     
• ONS Households and non-profit institutions serving households (1.9%) 
• Other (3.6%)

The MBS data are published alongside this release in our MBS turnover of services industries dataset.

For further information on what is included within “other”, please see our Gross domestic product (GDP(o)) data sources catalogue.

The percentage of each data source is based on their gross value added weight.

Our IoS methods and sources pages provide more information on the data that underpin these statistics; of particular note is our GDP(o) data sources catalogue.

Value Added Tax (VAT) data are also included for small and medium-sized businesses to help inform estimates. For more information, see our VAT turnover data in National Accounts: background and methodology.

Quality and methodology

The data reported in IoS bulletins and datasets are estimates that are subject to uncertainty, for example, sampling variability and non-sampling error. For more information on these, see Section 2 of our Uncertainty and how we measure it for our surveys methodology.

More quality and methodology information (QMI) on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Index of Services quality and methodology information (QMI).

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2014. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled “accredited official statistics”.

Revisions to Index of Services

This release gives data for April 2026 for the first time, with no other periods open for revision.

In our next IoS publication on 16 July 2026, we will open for revision back to January 2024. This release will incorporate the revisions from our GDP quarterly national accounts, UK bulletin, to be published on 30 June 2026.

Seasonal adjustment

The monthly estimates of IoS are seasonally adjusted. Seasonal adjustment is the process of removing the variations associated with the time of year, or the arrangement of the calendar, from a data time series.

IoS estimates, as for many data time series, are difficult to analyse using raw data because seasonal effects dominate short-term movements. Identifying and removing the seasonal component leaves the trend and irregular components.

The ONS uses the X-13-ARIMA-SEATS approach to seasonal adjustment. Seasonal adjustment parameters are monitored closely and regularly reviewed. For more information, please see our seasonal adjustment methodology page.

In our IoS estimates, seasonal adjustment is applied at the industry level and the seasonally adjusted series are aggregated to create estimates by sector and total IoS output. As part of our quality assurance approach, residual seasonality checks are regularly completed by our time series analysis team on both the directly seasonally adjusted series and also the indirectly derived aggregate time series.

Based on our quality assurance as part of this publication, there is no statistically significant residual seasonality in our aggregate estimates for IoS in the period from January 1997 to April 2026.

This topic is explored further in our article on assessing residual seasonality, published on 12 May 2026.

We have published non-seasonally adjusted chained volume measure series in our updated low level industry dataset. There are conceptual differences between indirect and direct seasonal adjustment. Indirect seasonal adjustment is the sum of the directly seasonally adjusted component series, typically chosen at an optimal level and depending on user needs. For the UK National Accounts, GDP aggregates are created with indirect seasonal adjustment. Because of processing, including benchmarking and chain-linking, direct seasonal adjustment of the non-seasonally adjusted GDP aggregate will not give the same results as the indirect seasonally adjusted output.