GDP Monthly Estimate: May 2024

The industry which made the biggest contributions to overall GDP growth in May was Retail, Wholesale & Motor Trades, which contributed 0.2 percentage points to overall growth. The positive contributions were partly offset by falling output in Electricity & Gas Supply and Manufacturing.

In May, output in the services sector is estimated to have grown by 0.6%, with growth in seven of the fourteen subsectors. Production sector output contracted by 2.2% in May, with contractions in three of the four subsectors. Construction sector output grew by 1.9% in May.

As reported by the Office for National Statistics, there were some common themes that were anecdotally reported (as part of the Monthly Business Survey (MBS) for production and services) to have played a part in performance across different industries. However, it is difficult to quantify the exact impact.

Comments provided for May 2024 suggested that the construction, retail, and accommodation sectors were affected by unseasonal weather patterns across both April, which was wetter than normal, and May, which saw warm weather. Scottish rainfall in April 2024 was 160% of the long-term (1991-2020) average, and May 2024 was the warmest on record since records began in 1884, according to the Met Office's Monthly Climate Summaries. See the Met Office's April 2024 Weather Report (PDF, 5.8MB) and its May 2024 Weather Report (PDF, 4.6MB).