Economic growth in the three months to the end of August was 0.7% according to the latest estimate from the Office for National Statistics, released today.
The warm weather helped the services sector with retail and consumer sectors showing a big improvement. House-building also performed particularly well.
On a rolling three-month basis, service-sector output grew by 0.5%, production industries grew by 0.7% and construction output grew by 2.9%.
Growth in July was revised upward by 0.1% to 0.7% due to a better than anticipated performance by the services sector.
The IT and communication industry provided a strong contribution to growth in August, continuing the trend seen over the last two years. Computer programming is a particular hot-spot, with recruiters Robert Walters (RWA) and Page Group (PAGE) both recently reporting strong demand for skilled staff in this area.
Within production industries manufacturing shrank by 0.2% in August with more sectors experiencing negative growth than positive growth. However the warm weather increased demand for food, beverages and pharmaceuticals.
