Consumer trends, UK: April to June 2023

• In Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2023, household spending growth (adjusted for inflation) was 0.5% compared with Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2023.

• Compared with Quarter 2 2022, household spending increased by 0.2%.

• The largest positive contribution to growth in Quarter 2 2023 was from transport (showing a 1.8% increase compared with Quarter 1 2023).

• The largest negative contribution to growth in Quarter 2 2023 was from clothing and footwear (showing a 2.4% decrease compared with Quarter 1 2023).

• When compared with Q4 2019 (pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic), household spending decreased by 1.0%. 

The quarterly consumer trends data are typically published around 90 days after the end of the quarter.

This release contains data that are consistent with the UK National Accounts, The Blue Book: 2023, to be released on 31 October 2023. As such, data for all periods within this release are subject to revision in line with the National Accounts Revisions Policy.

The Blue Book is the UK's annual compendium of national accounts data and incorporates a number of improvements to methods and sources into the UK's National Accounts. For details of improvements introduced in Blue Book 2023, which affect household expenditure and revisions to the previous publication, see our User guide to consumer trends methodology.

The reference year and last base year for all chained volume measure estimates is 2019.

For further information on latest developments and changes implemented in Blue Book 2023, see our Proposed changes to be implemented in Blue Book and Pink Book 2023 article.

We have produced an update to the Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) to Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) mapper for 2020.

Household final consumption expenditure (HHFCE) includes spending on goods and services, except for:

• buying or extending a house

• investment in valuables (for example, paintings and antiques)

• purchasing second-hand goods

For explanations for these exceptions and the related concepts, see our Consumer trends Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Quality

For more quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created, see our Consumer trends QMI.

Impact of coronavirus (COVID-19)

From Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2020, estimates of HHFCE, along with other components of gross domestic product (GDP), are subject to more uncertainty than was the case previously. This is because of the challenges we faced in collecting the data under government-imposed public health restrictions. In the case of HHFCE, these challenges were compounded by the suspension of data collection for the International Passenger Survey (IPS) between March 2020 and January 2021, and the temporary suspension of the Living Costs and Food survey (LCF) between 16 March and 14 April 2020.