Business investment in the UK: July to September 2026 provisional results

• UK business investment increased by 0.4% in Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2026 and is 3.0% above the level seen in the same quarter in 2025.

• This release contains datasets for Quarter 3 2026 business investment provisional results; for further commentary on these data, please see our Gross domestic product (GDP) first quarterly estimate bulletin, linked in Section 4: Related links

Quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Business investment in the UK quality and methods guide.

Revisions

In line with our National Accounts Revisions Policy, there are no periods open for revision in this publication.

Data in this bulletin

All data in this bulletin, unless specified, are presented in chained volume measure (CVM), otherwise known as "real". This means the effect of price changes has been removed (in other words, the data are deflated).

In Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2026, the Quarterly Acquisitions and Disposals of Capital Assets Survey (QCAS) - the largest data source for gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) and business investment - had a response rate of 62.6% for estimates used in the provisional release. From Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2022 onwards, the average response rate in the provisional business investment release was 63.0%, and the average response rate in the revised business investment release was 77.5%.

Adjustments

Large capital expenditure is often reported later in the data collection period than smaller capital expenditure. This means that larger expenditures are often included in the revised (month 3) results but are not reported in time for the provisional (month 2) results. This can result in upward revisions in the later estimates for business investment and GFCF.

Following investigation of the impact of this effect, from Quarter 3 2013, we introduced an option to include a bias adjustment in the provisional estimate to help manage uncertainty around these early estimates. The bias adjustment for this provisional release is £2.8 billion.

Accredited official statistics

The Office for Statistics Regulation independently reviewed these accredited official statistics in September 2013. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".