{"id":421509,"date":"2026-02-12T09:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421509\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T09:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:25:07","slug":"uk-economy-ekes-out-0-1-growth-in-the-fourth-quarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421509\/","title":{"rendered":"UK economy ekes out 0.1% growth in the fourth quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Westminster, South Bank, London, England.<\/p>\n<p>Scott E Barbour | The Image Bank | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The U.K. economy grew a meager 0.1% in the fourth quarter, according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/economy\/grossdomesticproductgdp\/bulletins\/gdpfirstquarterlyestimateuk\/octobertodecember2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">preliminary figures<\/a>\u00a0from the Office for National Statistics on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Economists polled by Reuters expected the economy to have grown 0.2% over the October-December period,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/11\/13\/uk-q3-gdp-2025.html?utm_campaign=trueanthem&amp;utm_content=main&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=linkedin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">following 0.1% growth in the third quarter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Month-on-month, the economy expanded 0.1% in December, down from a 0.2% expansion, revised down from 0.3%, the previous month. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/GBP=\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pound sterling<\/a> was flat against the dollar following the data, at $1.3624.<\/p>\n<p>The ONS&#8217; Director of Economic Statistics Liz McKeown said the latest data showed a mixed economic picture.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The often-dominant services sector showed no growth, with the main driver instead coming from manufacturing. Construction, meanwhile, registered its worst performance in more than four years,&#8221; she said on X Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The U.K. economy is estimated to have grown 1.3% in 2025, the ONS noted, following growth of 1.1% in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The growth figures come after the Bank of England voted narrowly at its early February meeting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/02\/05\/bank-of-england-interest-rate-decision-comment-analysis.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to keep interest rates on hold<\/a>, at 3.75%, given persistent inflationary pressures. <\/p>\n<p>Those pressures are expected to ease in the coming months, however, and economists predict that the central bank could next cut rates in April to stimulate the lackluster British economy.<\/p>\n<p>Samuel Edwards,\u00a0head of Client Portfolio Management\u00a0at financial services firm Ebury, noted that the U.K. had ended 2025 on a positive note, &#8220;albeit a very modest one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After a very turbulent week in UK politics and a wave of market jitters, businesses will be pleased to have a slither of positive economic news,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However, whilst the U.K. economy keeps its head above water, concerns remain around the slowing jobs market and sticky inflation,&#8221; he remarked in emailed comments.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Gardner, investment strategist at J.P. Morgan Personal Investing, commented Thursday that after a mixed bag in the final quarter, recent data hints that the U.K. economy is due a recovery in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Manufacturing activity picked up in the first month of the year while the services industry has seen a decent influx of new business activity. The hope is that this progress can grease the wheels of the economy and lead to an improved outlook and performance over 2026.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Westminster, South Bank, London, England. Scott E Barbour | The Image Bank | Getty Images The U.K. economy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6146,84,273,8380,8381,1278,1294,2016,38362,2020,186,56,54,55,6147,4953],"class_list":{"0":"post-421509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-breaking-news-economy","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-business-news","11":"tag-cac-40-index","12":"tag-dax","13":"tag-economic-events","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-ftse-100","16":"tag-ftse-mib","17":"tag-gbp-usd","18":"tag-prices","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom","22":"tag-world-economy","23":"tag-world-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421509","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=421509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}