UK economy grows in Q2 2024, building on recovery

Britain’s economy grew 0.6 percent in the second quarter of 2024, official figures showed on Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast an expansion of 0.6 percent, building on a rapid 0.7 percent recovery in the first quarter of the year from a shallow recession in the second half of 2023.

At the start of the month the Bank of England raised its annual growth forecast for 2024 to 1.25 percent from 0.5 percent due to a stronger-than-expected start to the year and an expectation of 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in the three months to June.

But it was less upbeat about the outlook for the remainder of 2024, seeing growth slow to 0.4 percent in the third quarter and 0.2 percent in the final three months of the year – which it views as closer to the economy’s underlying growth rate.

Britain’s economy has grown slowly since the COVID-19 pandemic. Only Germany, which was also hit hard by surging energy costs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has done noticeably worse among the world’s largest advanced economies.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted the economy to achieve annual growth of 2.5 percent when campaigning in the run-up to July 4’s election – a rate that Britain has not regularly reached since before the 2008 financial crisis.

Finance minister Rachel Reeves set a more formal target that Britain should enjoy the fastest per capita growth in gross domestic product among the Group of Seven advanced economies for two consecutive years.

Growth in output per hour worked has slowed in most advanced economies since the late 2000s – limiting increases in living standards – and Britain’s long-standing domestic headwinds from low business investment were exacerbated by the public’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union.