Economic growth in the first half of the year has been revised down in the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS now thinks that the UK economy grew 0.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2024, down from a previous estimate of 0.6 per cent.
The services sector grew by 0.6 per cent in the second quarter, which was partially offset by falls in production and construction.
Growth in the first quarter of 2023 was also revised down by 0.1 percentage points, although the revisions did little to change the overall picture for the past couple of years.
Liz McKeown, ONS director of economic statistics, said the updated figures included new survey data, VAT returns and updated information about the size of different industries.
“After taking on these improvements, the quarterly growth path across the last 18 months is virtually unchanged,” she said.
Source: ONS
The UK was among the fastest growing economies in the G7 in the first half of the year as the economy recovered much faster than expected from last year’s shallow recession.
However, most economists think that the UK’s sharp growth rate was overestimating momentum in the economy, predicting that it would ease in the second half of the year.
The latest GDP figures suggest that the economy stagnated in July for the second month in a row, although survey data points to a modest expansion.
The ONS’s updated figures also showed a continued increase in the household savings rate, which rose to 10.0 per cent in the latest quarter from 8.9 per cent in the first quarter.
Non-pension saving contributed 5.4 percentage points of the saving ratio, making it the first time since the pandemic that non-pension saving exceeded pension saving.
“Our latest data show that household savings continue to increase and are now at their highest rate since the Covid-19 lockdowns,” McKeown said.