{"id":386901,"date":"2026-01-23T22:43:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/386901\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T22:43:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:43:19","slug":"uk-january-flash-services-pmi-54-3-vs-51-7-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/386901\/","title":{"rendered":"UK January flash services PMI 54.3 vs 51.7 expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prior 51.4Manufacturing PMI 51.6 vs 50.6 expectedPrior 50.6Composite PMI 53.9 vs 51.5 expectedPrior 51.4Full report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pmi.spglobal.com\/public\/release\/pressreleases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" class=\"article-link\" data-v-4026719d=\"\">here<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-4026719d=\"\">Key Findings:<\/p>\n<p>Strongest upturn in UK private sector business activity since April 2024<\/p>\n<p data-v-4026719d=\"\">Comment:<\/p>\n<p data-v-4026719d=\"\">Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&amp;P<br \/>\nGlobal Market Intelligence:\n<\/p>\n<p data-v-4026719d=\"\">\u201cUK businesses kicked up a gear in January, showing<br \/>\nencouraging resilience in the face of recent geopolitical<br \/>\ntensions. Companies are reporting higher demand, both<br \/>\nfrom home and export markets, which has driven output<br \/>\ngrowth to the fastest since April 2024. Firms are also<br \/>\nreporting the greatest optimism about the business<br \/>\noutlook since before the 2024 Autumn Budget.\n<\/p>\n<p data-v-4026719d=\"\">&#8220;The January flash PMI is up to a level indicative of a<br \/>\nrobust quarterly GDP growth approaching 0.4%.<br \/>\nWhile growth continues to be driven by the service<br \/>\nsector, and in particular financial services and tech,<br \/>\nthe manufacturing sector is also continuing to report<br \/>\na gathering recovery aided by resurgent demand, with<br \/>\ngoods exports notably rising for the first time in four<br \/>\nyears.\n<\/p>\n<p data-v-4026719d=\"\">&#8220;The good news was tempered, however, by the upturn<br \/>\nin order books failing to stem a steep loss of jobs, which<br \/>\ncompanies commonly blamed on the need to reduce high<br \/>\ncosts. These cost pressures were again often linked to<br \/>\ngovernment policies relating to higher National Insurance<br \/>\ncontributions and the National Minimum Wage, and led to<br \/>\nan especially steep drop in hospitality jobs.\n<\/p>\n<p data-v-4026719d=\"\">&#8220;High staffing costs were meanwhile again widely<br \/>\nreported as a key cause of higher selling prices, hinting at<br \/>\nan intensification of price pressures at a level above the<br \/>\nBank of England target.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>UK Composite PMI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prior 51.4Manufacturing PMI 51.6 vs 50.6 expectedPrior 50.6Composite PMI 53.9 vs 51.5 expectedPrior 51.4Full report here Key Findings:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-386901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}