GDP Quarterly National Accounts: 2024 Quarter 1 (January to March)

GDP growth in volume terms

Headline quarterly GDP figures

Scotland’s onshore GDP (i.e. excluding offshore oil and gas) is estimated to have grown by 0.5% during 2024 Quarter 1 (January to March), revised down from the first estimate of 0.7% growth published on 29 May. The growth in the latest quarter follows an unrevised fall of 0.5% during 2023 Quarter 4 (October to December), growth of 0.3% during 2023 Quarter 3 (July to September) and a fall of 0.2% during Quarter 2 (April to July).

Taken over the last 12 months, compared to the same quarter in 2023, Scotland’s GDP has grown by 0.1%. This has been revised down from the first estimate of 0.2% growth.

Annual GDP growth and comparisons to pre-pandemic levels

Annual GDP is estimated to have grown by an unrevised 0.1% in 2023. This follows growth of 5.9% in 2022 and 9.2% in 2021, after the fall of 12.0% in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest estimates show that, in 2024 Quarter 1, GDP in Scotland is now 1.5% above the pre-pandemic level in 2019 Quarter 4.

Users should continue to be cautious about drawing firm conclusions based on comparisons between Scotland and the UK as a whole, or other countries, which include the periods of time when the economy was most severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. This includes the estimate of the latest level of GDP compared to the pre-pandemic level, and the size of changes in GDP during 2020 to 2022 in particular. The estimates of GDP from 2020 onwards are continuing to evolve as more data becomes available, and it is likely that these results will change again in future releases. A recent blog by the National Statistician has re-iterated the challenges of measuring GDP at this time.

Latest results by industry of output

In 2024 Quarter 1, output in the services sector grew by 0.6% compared to the previous quarter, with output growing in ten of the fourteen subsectors. The positive contributions to overall growth in the quarter came from the financial and insurance services industry (+1.9%) and the retail and wholesale sector (+1.4%), which showed strong growth after the fall of 1.9% in the previous quarter. 

Output in the production sector grew by 0.9% overall, with growth in three of the four main subsectors, including an increase of 0.6% in manufacturing and a downwardly revised increase of 2.3% in electricity and gas supply.

Output in the construction sector is estimated to have fallen by 0.6% during Quarter 1.

Estimates of GDP in volume terms for the services and production sectors can be found in the downloadable data tables, including more detailed breakdowns of the manufacturing sector, and estimates of annual GDP growth back to 1963.

Estimates of GDP growth in volume terms based on the expenditure approach to GDP (consumption, government expenditure, investment and trade) are also available in the downloadable data. These figures are currently designated as official statistics in development and are principally published for use by analysts, for example as inputs to economic forecasts.

The Monthly GDP estimates give a more detailed indication of the trends for each industry sector, and include results up to May 2024 at the time of release.