Index of Services, UK: January 2026

• Services output was estimated to have increased by 0.2% in the three months to January 2026, compared with the previous three months to October 2025.

• In the three months to January 2026, 7 of the 14 sectors showed growth with the main positive contributing sectors being "wholesale and retail trade" (up 1.0%) and "information and communication" (up 0.8%).

• In the three months to January 2026, 4 of the 14 sectors showed a decline (3 sectors showed no growth) with the main contributor being "real estate activities" (down 0.2%).

• Monthly services output was estimated to have no growth (0.0%) in January 2026; this follows a rise of 0.2% in December 2025 and a rise of 0.1% in November 2025.

• There were monthly increases in 7 of the 14 sectors in January 2026; the largest positive contribution on the month came from "wholesale and retail trade" (up 1.0%) and "professional, scientific, and technical activities" (up 0.6%).

• There were monthly decreases in 6 of the 14 sectors (1 sector had no growth) in January 2026; the largest negative contribution came from "administrative and support activities" (down 2.3%).

Response rates for January 2026

The response rates for January 2026 were 71.3 % based on forms returned. This accounted for 84.7% 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.  

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 January 2026 for the first time. We have exceptionally revised the series for "non-market education" and "retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles" from January 2024 to December 2025. This was to bring through updates to the seasonal adjustment factors in non-market education, and to reflect revisions made to the Retail Sales Index (RSI), Retail sales, Great Britain: December 2025 bulletin, published on 23 January 2026.

Please note, in our next IoS publication on 16 April 2026 we will open for revision back to January 2024. This release will incorporate the revisions from the Quarterly National Accounts release being published on 31 March 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. 

We use 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. 

This topic is explored further in our Assessing residual seasonality in published outputs article updated on 30 September 2025.

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