- Final Services PMI 53.7 vs. 53.3 expected and 52.5 prior.
- Final Composite PMI 53.8 vs. 53.4 expected and 52.8 prior.
Key findings:
- Business activity growth accelerates again.
- Robust rise in new work led by improving domestic demand.
- Slowest rate of prices charged inflation for three- and-a-half years.
Comment:
Tim Moore, Economics Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence
"August data highlighted a recovery in UK service sector performance as improving economic conditions and domestic political stability helped to bolster customer demand. New business again increased at a robust pace after a lull in decision-making earlier this summer.
This fuelled the fastest upturn in service sector activity since April and extended the current period of growth to ten months. Service providers responded to the upturn in business conditions by hiring additional staff in August.
Job creation remained faster than seen on average in the first half of 2024, despite headwinds from scarce candidate availability and elevated wage pressures. Higher salary payments resulted in another sharp rise in cost burdens across the service economy.
However, the overall rate of input price inflation resumed its recent descent in August and reached its lowest since January 2021. Adding to meaningful signs of softer inflationary pressures in the service sector, the latest survey indicated that average prices charged increased at the weakest pace for three-and-a-half years.
The modest post-election bounce in business activity expectations faded, however, in August. Hopes of interest rate cuts and steady improvements in broader economic conditions helped to support confidence, but some firms cited concerns about policy uncertainty in the run up to the Autumn Budget."
