Britain\u2019s economy recorded zero monthly growth in July after a sharp drop in factory output, in line with expectations for a slower start to the second half of 2025.<\/p>\n
Manufacturing output – which makes up 9 per cent of the economy – dropped by a hefty 1.3 per cent on the month with declines across various types of production, led by computers, electronics and pharmaceuticals, the Office for National Statistics said.<\/p>\n
But the much larger services sector edged up 0.1 per cent on the month, slightly ahead of expectations. GDP had risen 0.4 per cent in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cJuly\u2019s slowdown is probably the start of a more restrained period for the economy with higher inflation and rising job losses likely to have stifled activity in August, despite an expected uplift from the warm weather,\u201d said Suren Thiru, economics director at the ICAEW accountancy body.<\/p>\n
Sterling was slightly weaker after the data, though Thiru said he did not expect the Bank of England to cut rates again after next week\u2019s meeting as inflation looked on track to rise further above the Bank of England\u2019s 2 per cent target.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s economy grew robustly by its recent standards in the first half of 2025, expanding by 0.7 per cent in the first quarter of the year and 0.3% in the second – partly due to higher government spending and exporters trying to ship goods before the imposition of U.S. tariffs.<\/p>\n
On an annual basis, gross domestic product in July was 1.4 per cent higher than a year earlier – unchanged from June\u2019s annual growth rate but a shade lower than the 1.5% growth forecast in a Reuters poll, official figures showed.<\/p>\n
But economists expect slower growth in the second half as tariffs weigh on global demand and Britain\u2019s labour market weakens. Last month, before the release of second-quarter data, the Bank of England forecast annual growth of 1.25% for this year well below the average of 2% between 2010 and 2019.<\/p>\n
Finance minister Rachel Reeves said on Thursday that Britain\u2019s economy \u201cisn\u2019t broken, but it does feel stuck\u201d.<\/p>\n
She hopes that pro-growth measures in the run-up to her annual budget on November 26 will lead to a more favourable assessment of Britain\u2019s prospects from the Office for Budget Responsibility.<\/p>\n
But some businesses say they are keeping hiring and investment plans on hold, as they await details of tougher employment legislation and whether they will be the main target again for tax rises. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s economy recorded zero monthly growth in July after a sharp drop in factory output, in line with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[42757,79,179,18,19,17,27515],"class_list":{"0":"post-59474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-british-private-equity-and-venture-capital-association","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-pa2025"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}