Insights from the June Nowcast: Personal Economic Downturn
The Economic Nowcast uses near-real-time financial data and offers an early view of how account holders are really coping. and report on year-on-year changes alongside our standard monthly updates. The current Nowcast figures provide policymakers, analysts and public sector organisations with near-real time insight into key economic wellbeing indicators. The Economic Nowcast has been updated with data to the 17th of May.
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.
At a glance
There were increases in Living Beyond Means this month, and when paired with a decrease in Average Weekly Incomes it is a sign of economic downturn for personal economic wellbeing across Great Britain
- Living Beyond Means: 11.4% (1.1%-point increase)
- Average Weekly Income: £334.54 (3.56% decrease)
- Small Business Productivity: £10,883 (2.26% decrease)
Living Beyond Means
Our Living Beyond Means metric captures the share of accounts where expenditure exceeds income by 20% or more. Income includes wages, benefits and pensions, allowing us to track changes in financial health on a month-to-month basis. There were increases across Great Britain this month, with an overall increase of 1.1%-points:
- England increased by 0.8%-points to 11.1%
- Scotland saw the largest increase of 1.9%-points to 12.3%
- Wales increased by 0.7%-points to 10.3%
Average Weekly Income
Average weekly income shows the average weekly income across Great Britain, after tax which is calculated on a 13-week rolling average. Overall, Great Britain experienced a decrease in average weekly income, now lowered to £334.54, and no region experienced an increase.
Scottish average incomes decreased the most, by 6.5%, bringing them down to an average weekly income of £361.85, this remains the highest average income. English incomes decreased by 4.22% to £335.41, and Welsh by 3.07% to £341.04.
Small Business Productivity
The latest Sage quarterly report has been released which shows that there has been an 2.26% decrease in Small Business Productivity since Q4 2025, bringing it to £10,883. Measured in revenue in real terms generated per employee of small businesses, this is calculated quarterly, and the current figure refers to Q1 2026. This decrease is a worrying sign for the small business sector, which is a crucial component of Great Britain's economy.
For information on the report, read our deep dive and download the full report yourself here.
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