Labour Market and Productivity Data
Administrative data and official statistics underpin how the UK measures labour market participation, develops fiscal policy and assesses productivity. But traditional surveys alone can’t tell the full story - smart data, from 100,000s of UK SMEs, provides a more timely dataset to complement labour force and productivity statistics for policy makers and researchers.
Taking the pulse of the UK's SMEs
SMEs (businesses with fewer than 250 employees) make up the vast majority of the UK's businesses, yet they are under-represented in official statistics.
Our Sage Pulse reports and SME research datasets are built on anonymous data from hundreds of thousands of these economically critical businesses and cover productivity, profitability, workforce headcount and payroll data.
These novel insights, delivered as part of our Data for Good partnership with Sage UK, are helping to inform monetary policy, labour market development and business policy.
Latest labour market and productivity data
SME Productivity Growth
£10,883
Measured in revenue in real terms generated per employee of small businesses. This is calculated quarterly, currently for Q1 2026.
SME Headcount Growth
+0.5%
Headcount in sampled small businesses, compared with the previous year.
SME Profit Growth
+7.4%
SME profits at sampled small businesses, measured YoY. This figure is for YoY change to Q1 2026.
Explore more labour market and productivity data
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Access the data catalogueResearch Spotlight: SME responses to increases in National Living Wage and National Insurance Contributions
Led by Professor Paul Mizen of King's College London, this FINDS Fellowship project explores how small and micro-firms responded to the increases in National Living Wage and employer National Insurance Contributions announced in the 2024 Autumn Budget.
How firms choose to respond to these increased labour costs, and the wider inflationary and labour market impacts of these decisions, is of interest to government, the Low Pay Commission and the Bank of England. However, existing data sources lack representation of smaller businesses and face sampling issues.
This project uses FINDS SME accounting data to close that gap, covering SMEs and micro firms across a wide range of sectors and geographies. By measuring how small firms actually respond - through pricing, margins, pay freezes or hiring choices - this research aims to provide fiscal policy makers with better evidence on wage pressures and inflation dynamics as a result of policy choices.
Read more about our FINDS FellowsSage SME Pulse Reports
The Sage SME Performance Pulse and Sage SME Workforce Pulse are collaborations between Smart Data Foundry, Sage UK and cebr, both drawn from a sample of over 150,000 UK businesses with maximum monthly revenue of £1 million.
The Performance Pulse, released quarterly, tracks productivity, revenue, profitability, late payments and expenditure, enabling comparisons across financial quarters and UK regions. The Workforce Pulse, released monthly with an annual reflection, tracks earnings growth, the effect of inflation on earnings, and headcount growth, with regional and sector breakdowns – together showing how SMEs are responding to economic pressures and the resulting impact on the workforce and average take-home pay.
Read the latest SME Pulse reports
Findings from the Sage Small Business Performance Pulse Q1 2026
Why data for good matters
Data for Good is our commitment to help small and medium businesses thrive. Our partnership with Smart Data Foundry help us turn anonymised data into powerful insights, enabling better decision making by stakeholders in business and policy and helping us to meet our commitment to SMBs.
- Name
- Will Taggart
- Role
- Data for Good Lead, Sage UK