Consumer trends, UK: April to June 2026

• Household spending growth (adjusted for inflation) is estimated to have grown by 0.3% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2026.

• The largest contributors to household spending quarterly growth were clothing and footwear, restaurants and hotels and housing.

• Household spending is estimated to have grown by 1.2% in Quarter 2 2026, compared with the same quarter a year ago.

• This release contains datasets for consumer trends Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2026; for further commentary on these data, please see our gross domestic product (GDP) quarterly national accounts bulletin.

• This release contains data that are consistent with the UK National Accounts, The Blue Book 2026 compendium, which will be released on 30 October 2026; data for all periods in this release are subject to revision in line with the National Accounts Revision Policy.

Household final consumption expenditure (HHFCE) is a measure of household spending on goods and services, which is produced as part of the compilation of the UK's National Accounts.

HHFCE estimates are aligned to the definitions of the internationally agreed System of National Accounts (SNA) and, as such, they may differ from household expenditure figures produced for other purposes. For example, in line with the SNA, HHFCE estimates will not include the cost of buying or extending a house, investments in valuables, or second-hand purchases.

A detailed explanation of HHFCE concepts, coverage and expenditure definitions can be found in our User guide to consumer trends and our Consumer trends quality and methodology information (QMI).

Data in this bulletin

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

The HHFCE estimates in consumer trends are a component of the expenditure approach to measuring gross domestic product (GDP). The three approaches to GDP – expenditure, income and output – are reconciled through a balancing process as part of the compilation of the UK National Accounts. Our consumer trends release publishes estimates that reflect this balancing process.

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

The reference year and last base year for all CVM estimates is 2024.

For the quarterly national accounts from Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2020, we began publishing consumer trends in data-only format and concentrating mainly on changes at the two-digit classification of individual consumption by purpose (COICOP) level. Data at the lower levels are available but should be used with caution and may be subject to larger-than-normal revisions.

Revisions

In line with the National Accounts Revisions Policy, the data in this publication are open to revision for the whole time period. This release contains data that are consistent with our GDP quarterly national accounts, UK: April to June 2026 time series, published on 30 September 2026, and our UK National Accounts, The Blue Book: 2026 compendium.

Impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

From Quarter 1 2020, estimates of HHFCE and other components of GDP are subject to more uncertainty than in previous releases. 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 our 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.

Quality

Some of the more detailed expenditure categories may include an element of forecasting because of data being unavailable. However, these forecasts form a very small proportion of total HHFCE.

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

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in January 2012. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".