Insights from September’s Economic Nowcast
The Smart Data Foundry Economic Nowcast has been updated for September 2025, and shows that, at national level, there has been a 1% increase in the proportion of people spending more than their income and a 1.53% decline in average weekly incomes.
The Nowcast now provides regional breakdowns for England, Scotland and Wales and these show an uneven picture in economic wellbeing trends across the three nations.
Our Nowcast is updated monthly and is designed to equip policymakers, analysts, and service providers with the timely insights necessary for proactive, data-informed decision-making.
By leveraging real-world, near real-time data, the Nowcast provides policymakers with a more accurate view of the current economic landscape. This complements official statistics and strengthens their ability to access the timely information required to respond to shifting economic challenges quickly and effectively.
Behind the numbers: September’s Nowcast
The September Nowcast contains three indicators, representing economic wellbeing and productivity across Great Britain. Figures are taken from a rolling average up to the observation point in mid-August. These are compared to the previous month’s figures (or previous quarter for SMB productivity) to identify trends and insights.
Average weekly income
This indicator measures average GB weekly income, based on a 13-week rolling average to 10th August 2025.
After last month’s sharp 7.29% increase, average weekly incomes have fallen by 1.53% down to £327.58 per week (equating to £17,034 per year). Average incomes remain above April’s average of £319 per week, after a period of decline from April-July.
What’s the regional picture?
Scotland saw the smallest decline, at just 0.13% or £84 over the year. However, England and Wales saw bigger fluctuation with English incomes falling by 1.95% (£340 over the year) and those in Wales losing £522 a year (3.13%) on the previous month.
Living beyond means
After declining 0.5% last month, the proportion of people spending 120% or more of their income (salary, pensions & benefits) has jumped up by 1%. This equates to an additional 50,000 people in our sample struggling to make ends meet, though it is significantly lower than April’s figure of 14.6% (730,000 in our sample).
What’s the regional picture?
Once again, the regional breakdown shows a more complex picture. The proportion of the Scottish population living beyond their means actually fell by 0.2%, in contrast to England (up 1.2%) and Wales (up 1.3%).
This trend in living beyond means correlates with the average income data above for each of the three regions.
About the data behind the Nowcast
Smart Data Foundry works with trusted data partners to responsibly share de-identified financial data for good. This data is used in research, policy making and public service delivery and supports decisions which improve economic wellbeing and reduce poverty and inequality.
The Economic Nowcast is underpinned by a dataset built on around 5 million consumer bank accounts and thousands of SMEs. This data is regularly shared by our data partners, prepared and aggregated by our data science team to produce the Nowcast indicators. Each indicator is updated either monthly (or quarterly for SMB performance), and allows users to compare with the previous month and quarter.
Learn more about the Nowcast, including our methodology, here.
* Note on average weekly income data
To produce these figures we run two different models; one for the GB-wide average and one for the regional averages. This is to accommodate regional-level variables not present in the national dataset. Because the national and regional figures are derived from two different models (though both trained on the same underlying data), it won't guarantee some of the fidelity you might expect such as the national average being equal to the average over regions.
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Every transaction, loan application and payment reveals something about the state of the UK economy.
We use this financial data to create our Nowcast, a near real-time economic pulse, with the potential to spot economic trends and changes months before official statistics catch up.
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