ONS Production Output Report: September 2025
This summary is based on information from the Office for National Statistics’ Index of Production, UK: July 2025, highlighting recent trends in the UK’s production industries, including manufacturing, mining and quarrying, energy supply, and water and waste management.
Monthly Performance Analysis
In July 2025, the UK’s monthly production output was estimated to have decreased by 0.9%, following a rise in June (0.7%) and a fall in May (1.3%).
The decline in monthly output was driven by falls in:
-
Manufacturing (down 1.3%)
-
Mining and quarrying (down 2.0%)
These were partially offset by growth in:
-
Electricity and gas (up 2.0%)
-
Water supply and sewerage (up 0.8%)
Within manufacturing, 9 of the 13 subsectors saw a decline in July. The largest negative contributions came from:
-
Computer, electronic and optical products (down 7.0%)
-
Chemicals and chemical products (down 4.6%)
-
Basic pharmaceutical products (down 4.5%)
Three-Monthly Trends
In the three months to July 2025, production output was estimated to have decreased by 1.3% compared with the previous three months (February to April 2025). This marks the weakest three-monthly growth since December 2023, when output also fell by 1.3%.
The largest negative contributors were:
-
Manufacturing (down 1.1%)
-
Electricity and gas (down 5.1%)
-
Mining and quarrying (down 1.8%)
These were partly offset by a rise in:
-
Water supply and sewerage (up 1.6%)
The three-monthly decline in manufacturing was broad-based, with 9 of 13 subsectors falling. This represents the first three-monthly decline in the sector since January 2025, underlining a weakening trend across much of UK manufacturing.
UK production output fell by 0.9% in July 2025 and by 1.3% across the three months to July, marking the steepest quarterly decline since December 2023. The downturn was driven by widespread weakness in manufacturing, both on the month and across the quarter, supported by significant falls in energy and mining, with only water supply and sewerage providing a modest offset. Taken together, these figures highlight renewed fragility in the UK’s production industries, with short-term monthly weakness combining with deeper, broad-based quarterly contractions to signal a challenging outlook for the sector.
Source: Index of Production, UK – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
