Industry results

The industry with the largest contribution to GDP growth is Electricity and Gas Supply, which contributed 0.3 percentage points to the December headline figure of 0.4%.

Electricity and Gas Supply output varies strongly from month to month and often contributes a large proportion to monthly growth or contraction. The growth in December follows a weak November for Electricity and Gas Supply output in November (contributing 0.4 percentage points of contraction to headline GDP).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) commented on some common themes that were anecdotally reported as part of the Monthly Business Survey (MBS) to have played a part in performance across different industries. However it is often difficult to quantify these effects.

The lack of demand for construction products was also prevalent with monthly declines across mining and quarrying, manufacture of paints and varnishes, cement and plaster, and iron and steel in December 2023. This supports the three consecutive monthly falls in construction output across Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2023.