19% trading businesses in UK expect turnover to drop in Aug 2025: ONS

Nineteen per cent of such businesses reported that they expect their turnover to decrease in August—up by 4 percentage points (pps) from expectations for July; this is similar to movements seen between July and August in both 2023 and 2024.

Economic uncertainty continued to be the most-reported challenge affecting turnover for trading businesses in early July this year at 29 per cent, broadly stable with early June; for businesses with 10 or more employees, the most-reported challenge was still the cost of labour at 36 per cent, though this is down 4 pps over the same period, an ONS release said.

For trading businesses with 10 or more employees, 15 per cent reported they expect to raise the prices of goods or services they sell in August 2025; this is down 3 pps from expectations for July and is the lowest proportion reported since November 2024.

Around two in five trading businesses with 10 or more employees reported that they are not considering raising their prices in August, the highest proportion reported since December 2024; for those businesses that are considering raising prices, the most-reported reason for doing so was labour costs (40 per cent), which is the lowest proportion reported since December 2024.

In July 2025, 9 per cent of businesses reported that they were experiencing worker shortages, which has been broadly stable since early August 2023; for businesses with 10 or more employees, the proportion was higher at 17 per cent, which has been broadly stable since early September 2024.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (DS)