GDP Quarterly National Accounts: 2024 Quarter 3 (July to September)

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 0.4% during 2024 quarter 3 (July to September), revised up from the first estimate of 0.3% growth published on 27 November.

The growth in the latest quarter follows an unrevised growth of 0.4% in quarter 2 (April to June) and upwardly revised growth of 0.9% in quarter 1 (January to March) following an upwardly revised fall of 0.5% in 2023 quarter 4 (October to December).

Taken over the last 12 months, compared to the same quarter in 2023, Scotland’s GDP has grown by 1.2%.

Annual GDP growth and comparisons to pre-pandemic levels

In 2023, annual GDP is now estimated to have grown by 0.5% compared to 2022, revised up from the previous estimate of 0.2%. This follows downwardly revised growth of 5.0% in 2022 and 8.9% in 2021, after the unrevised fall of 12.0% in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest estimates show that, in 2024 quarter 3, GDP in Scotland is now 1.9% above the pre-pandemic level of 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 blog by the National Statistician gave useful information on the challenges of measuring GDP for this period of time.

Latest results by industry of output

In 2024 quarter 2, output in the services sector grew by an unrevised 0.5% compared to the previous quarter, with output growing in eleven of the fourteen subsectors. The largest positive contributions to overall growth in the latest quarter were from the accommodation & food services (+3.6%) and arts, entertainment & recreation (+3.1 %). The largest negative contribution to growth in the services sector was from the other services subsector (-3.6%). 

In the production sector the was no overall growth (0.0%) in the latest quarter, revised up from the first estimate fall of 0.8%. Within production, there was growth of 0.3% in manufacturing and 2.2% in electricity and gas supply, offset by falls in the other two subsectors.

Output in the construction sector is estimated to have grown by 0.7% during quarter 3.

The downloadable GDP in volume terms tables include more detailed breakdowns of the services and manufacturing sectors, as well as estimates of GDP per head and 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 other national accounts summary tables. These figures are currently designated as official statistics in development and are not processed with the same level of quality assurance as the industry statistics. The expenditure components 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 November 2024 at the time of release.