UK business investment rises 0.4% in third quarter, 3.0% above a year earlier

UK business investment rose 0.4% between July and September 2026, leaving it 3.0% above the level of the same quarter in 2025, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday.

The figures are in chained volume terms, which means the effect of price changes has been removed, so the movement reflects real spending by firms rather than the impact of inflation.

The quarterly gain is far smaller than the 1.7% rise the statistics office first estimated for April to June 2026.

In that earlier quarter, business investment was put at 0.8% above its level a year before, so the annual comparison has since moved up to 3.0%.

Business investment is one part of gross fixed capital formation, the wider measure of spending on non-financial assets, which the ONS also publishes with breakdowns by sector and by type of asset.

The latest estimate is provisional, and the ONS said there are "no periods open for revision" in this release, so earlier quarters are left unchanged.

The largest source for the data is the Quarterly Acquisitions and Disposals of Capital Assets Survey, which had a response rate of 62.6% for the July to September estimate.

That compares with 62.9% for the April to June estimate, and with an average of 63.0% for provisional releases since the first quarter of 2022.

Revised releases have typically drawn far more replies, with the response rate averaging 77.5% over the same period, which is why early figures can later move.

Large capital spending tends to be reported later in the collection period than smaller outlays, so bigger items often miss the provisional estimate and can lead to upward revisions.

To allow for this, the ONS includes a bias adjustment in the provisional figure, and it is £2.8 billion this time, up from £2.6 billion in the April to June estimate.

The ONS also publishes a business investment time series by industry and asset, and its seasonally adjusted volume series can differ from the headline release.

The difference arises because the dataset seasonally adjusts industry-level series and then adds them up, while the release adjusts asset-level series first. The ONS said the release estimates are the official statistics.

The ONS also continues to advise that its gross fixed capital formation series before 1997 is under review, while data from 1997 onwards are not affected.

The statistics are accredited official statistics, independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation as meeting the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The next business investment release is due on 22 December 2026.