The UK economy grew 0.7% between July and September, its fastest quarterly expansion in two and a half years, as households and businesses proved resilient to energy costs that pushed oil above $100 a barrel.
The figure matched forecasts and is the strongest since the first three months of 2024, when output also rose 0.7%. Services did almost all the heavy lifting, climbing 0.9% as companies ramped up investment tied to an artificial intelligence boom while consumers kept spending by drawing down savings. Production edged up 0.1%, and a sharp drop in construction, roughly 6% of economic activity, was the only drag.
September added 0.2%, beating expectations for no growth, even as August was revised down from 0.1% to zero. That month wholesale electricity cost about double its level a year earlier, petrol moved past 1.70 a litre, and diesel pushed toward 2.
Output is up 1.8% so far this year, an annualised pace just above 2.5% and the best first three quarters since the pandemic rebound, running well ahead of the 1.2% forecast for the full year. Among the G7, only the United States is expanding faster, and only narrowly.
The Bank of England raised borrowing costs by a quarter point to 4% last week to cool inflation, and the resilience in the latest data keeps a further increase on the table for its December meeting.