Scottish Economic Bulletin July 2024

Output

The recent pick-up in GDP growth continued in the 3-months to May.

• Scotland’s economic output grew 0.9% in the three months to May with the pace of growth strengthening from the start of the year to its highest 3-monthly rate since April 2022.^[1]

• The 0.9% growth over the three months to May was driven by output growth in the Services sector (1.2%) and Production sector (0.3%) which offset a further contraction in Construction output (-0.6%).
• Within the Production sector, manufacturing output grew 0.9% over the 3-month period as output continues to recover from the fall in the second half of 2023. However, manufacturing output remains 2.5% lower than in May last year.
• The Services sector as a whole grew 1.2% in the three months to May, with the pace of growth continuing to strengthen from the start of the year and to its fastest rate since January 2022. Growth was relatively broad based across the services sector with a strong pick-up in growth in professional, scientific and technical services (6.2%).
• Consumer Facing Services also continued to grow robustly over the 3-month period (1.0%) supported by growth in retail (1.3%) and accommodation and food services (1.3%).