{"id":1049173,"date":"2026-06-25T12:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1049173\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:50:24","slug":"northern-ireland-economy-grew-by-0-7-in-first-quarter-of-2026-official-data-shows-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1049173\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland economy grew by 0.7% in first quarter of 2026, official data shows \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Output in north\u2019s economy increased by 0.7% in the first quarter of 2026, driven by the services and production sectors, official government data indicates.<\/p>\n

It took the Northern Ireland Composite Economic<\/a> Index to an all-time high in the opening three months of the year.<\/p>\n

Although not directly comparable to gross domestic product (GDP), it\u2019s the closest thing the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) has to comparing the north\u2019s economic output with that of the wider UK economy.<\/p>\n

The data suggests Northern Ireland\u2019s economy<\/a> continues to outperform UK GDP, which grew by 0.6% over the same quarter.<\/p>\n

\"Iconic<\/a>\"Family<\/a><\/p>\n

It means output in the north\u2019s economy increased by 3.6% over the year, more than three-times the UK GDP rate, which expanded by just 1.1% over the same period.<\/p>\n

\"NisraNisra graphic summarising the performance of the Northern Ireland Composite Economic Index. (Ryan) <\/p>\n

However, more recent surveys by Ulster Bank suggest a weaker performing private sector in the second quarter of this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nisra\u2019s analysis shows the Northern Ireland private sector expanded by 0.8% in the first quarter (Q1) of 2026, with output in the public sector growing by 0.3%.<\/p>\n

It said the services sector was the big economic driver in Q1, largely down to the performance of sub-sectors such as business services and finance, IT and \u2018other services\u2019, which factors in a diverse range of businesses across private healthcare, leisure, gambling, education, and personal services.<\/p>\n

Business services and finance has grown by 7.1% in the year to Q1 2026, while the \u2018transport, storage, information and communications\u2019 sector, which factors in tech companies and film production, expanded by 7.1%.<\/p>\n

But Nisra said the growth in those areas offset a contraction in both retail and hospitality, which decreased by 0.2% in Q1 2026.<\/p>\n

The latest Composite Economic Index has also detailed strong performances in the production sector, which spans manufacturing, recycling, energy and quarrying.<\/p>\n

Output in the mining and quarrying subsector alone soared by 10.1% in Q1 2026, albeit output was just up 1.3% over the year.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Nisra\u2019s data showed manufacturing output grew by 9.1% over the year to Q1 2026, ahead of \u2018electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply\u2019, which expanded by 7.4%.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, after a strong 2025, Nisra said output in the north\u2019s construction sector decreased by 1% in the opening quarter of 2026, due to decreases in \u2018new work\u2019 (-1%) and the repair and maintenance subsector (-2%). <\/p>\n

Output in the sector remained up by 10.1% over the 12 months to Q1 2026, driven by a surge in \u2018new work\u2019, which increased by 18.6% over the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Output in north\u2019s economy increased by 0.7% in the first quarter of 2026, driven by the services and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1049174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[18223,5286,1700,474,3448,1144,1199,20498,16,15],"class_list":["post-1049173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-economic","tag-economic-growth","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-gdp","tag-northern-ireland","tag-services","tag-statistics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1049173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1049174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1049173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1049173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1049173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}