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UK Consumer Spending Report
January key insights
Despite inflation driving up the spend on Essential items, it is encouraging to see consumers enjoy their leisure time with both Retail and Entertainment sectors providing bright spots in January.
Barclays UK Consumer Spend Report gives you a unique and up to date picture of the nation’s spending habits based on the actual transactions, bringing it to life so you can take action and shape your strategy.
Our latest report looks at UK Consumer spending patterns for the 25th December 2022 to 20th January 2023.
Food costs drive strong growth in Grocery
Supermarkets and Food and Drink Specialists saw their highest year on year growth in over a year with spend up 7.5% and 3.4% respectively when compared to the same period last year.
Despite this, Brits’ concern around rising food prices remains stable at 51% but 67% said they were looking for ways to reduce the cost of their weekly shop in January compared to 65% in December.
When compared to the same period last year, Essential card spending grew 8.3% in January 2023. This was higher than December 2022 (5.1%), with grocery spend having its largest increase (7.1%) since March 2021 as food inflation increases prices.
Non-Essential card spending grew 10.4% in January 2023; significantly higher compared to December 2022 (4.1%). This was driven by 26.5% year on year spend growth in the overall Hospitality and Leisure sector, which reflects the impact of the Plan B restrictions in place last year due to the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
Consumers spent 44.7% more on Utilities compared to January last year, an increase in spend growth compared to November 2022 (40.1%) and December 2022 (40.6%) likely as families spent more time at home over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Hospitality and Leisure
A brighter January for Restaurants
January marked the first month of positive growth for Restaurants since May 2022, with spend up 4.7% compared to last year as Brits were able to get together with family and friends after Christmas without any restrictions.
Bars, Pubs & Clubs similarly had a strong month with spend up 18.1% compared to last year as Brits socialised over drinks during the festive period and took part in New Year celebrations.
The strong growth in Restaurants and Bars, Pubs & Clubs emphasis how much consumers are enjoying their return to social normality, post the Covid-19 restrictions that were in place this time last year.
Head of Hospitality and Leisure, Barclays Corporate Banking
Retail
Clothing and Department Stores grow as consumer take advantage of sales
Clothing and Department Stores showed a second consecutive month of positive growth at 3.6% and 8.3% respectively with customers looking for bargains in the post‑Christmas sales.
January was an overall positive month for Retailers, particularly for Clothing and Department Stores with consumers making the most of the bargains available in the seasonal sales.
Head of Retail and Wholesale, Barclays Corporate Banking
Barclays Market and Customer Insights
Barclays Market and Customer Insights unlocks a wealth of customer transaction data and brings it to life so you can take action and shape your strategy.
We can help you keep up-to-date with spending trends, monitor your market position and enhance your understanding of customer behaviour, based on actual customer spending.
Leveraging anonymised data from our 250 million monthly customer transactions in the UK can help you understand who your customers are and how, when, and where they spend.
Contact the Barclays Market and Customer Insights team
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