{"id":762446,"date":"2026-09-07T02:32:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T02:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762446\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T02:32:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T02:32:21","slug":"uk-economy-likely-to-have-shrunk-in-july-as-retail-sales-dip-and-energy-bills-soar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762446\/","title":{"rendered":"UK economy likely to have shrunk in July as retail sales dip and energy bills soar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Energy<\/a> Energy bills have continued to rise for households (Alamy\/PA) <\/p>\n

Economists have warned that the UK economy<\/a> is likely to have experienced a slight dip in July due to pressure from sluggish retail activity and higher energy costs<\/a> for households. <\/p>\n

Analytic teams at Investec and Pantheon Macroeconomics predict that the Office for National Statistics<\/a> will reveal a 0.1% drop in monthly GDP<\/a> when the official growth figures are released on September 11. <\/p>\n

The expected contraction would mark a downbeat start to the tenure of Andy Burnham<\/a>, who was appointed Prime Minister<\/a> during the month. <\/p>\n

In June, the UK economy expanded by 0.3% as hospitality and leisure businesses benefited from extended hot weather and enthusiasm surrounding football tournaments. <\/p>\n

That surge helped push overall economic growth across the second quarter of the year to 0.4%. <\/p>\n

\"England's<\/a> England’s run to the World Cup semi-finals was not enough to significantly boost the economy (iStock) <\/p>\n

However, forecasters expect a subsequent correction, noting that stronger-than-anticipated activity in June may have brought forward household expenditure from July. <\/p>\n

Analysts at Investec commented: “After a positive first half of the year, where the UK economy actually outperformed the rest of the G7, growing by 1%, we expect the third quarter will begin with a weaker performance. <\/p>\n

“Some evidence of this has already been seen in soft retail sales<\/a> for the month, whilst we expect the rise in household utility bills due to the 13% uplift to the energy price cap would have had a dampening effect.” <\/p>\n

Pantheon Macroeconomics’ Robert Wood also forecast a 0.1% decline in July, projecting that economic expansion will slow to 0.2% across the third quarter as a whole. <\/p>\n

He indicated that broad areas of the services sector likely suffered downturns, creating a drag on the overall national performance. <\/p>\n

Retail and wholesale output is expected to have slipped by 0.3% during the month, though this will be more than offset by “a surge in accommodation and food services output in July” driven by hot weather and World Cup excitement. <\/p>\n

Thomas Pugh, chief economist at RSM UK, noted: “Services are likely to have been a tale of two consumers. <\/p>\n

“England’s World Cup run should have delivered a strong month for pubs, restaurants and hotels, but a 0.5% fall in retail sales suggests households changed where they spent, rather than opening their wallets wider, spending more money over the bar, but less at the tills.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Energy bills have continued to rise for households (Alamy\/PA) Economists have warned that the UK economy is likely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,50119,6906,75875,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-762446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-investec","tag-july","tag-pantheon-macroeconomics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762446","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=762446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}