Gross Domestic Product: Quarterly Output by Industry

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of the best known indicators of economic activity and is widely used to monitor economic performance. GDP statistics for Scotland are produced by the Scottish Government and have been designated as National Statistics. This dataset contains statistics for the output approach to GDP and growth in real terms, and includes results for the whole economy (Total GDP) and industry sectors. GDP can also be broken down using the income and expenditure approaches, which are available as separate datasets. There are two updates to the output by industry statistics each quarter. The First Estimate of GDP growth is published around 80 days after the quarter’s end, and an updated second estimate is published in the Quarterly National Accounts around 120 days after the quarter’s end. The First Estimate of GDP statistics will be published on this website as open data; the Second Estimate will not currently be available as open data, but will be available on the Scottish Government website. Results for previous periods are also open to revision each quarter. Further details on Scottish GDP statistics, including methodology notes and the revisions policy, are available.

The Industry Sector dimension in this dataset contains the broad industry sectors used on GDP statistics for Scotland the UK. These are based on industry sections from the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC, 2007). Further information can be found here The Measure Type dimension in this dataset contains four GDP measures, detailed below. The index measure is rounded to 4 decimal places and the growth rate measures are rounded to 1 decimal place. It is not always possible to replicate the published growth rates using rounded data, but all results are also available unrounded in the downloadable spreadsheets from the latest publication.

• 4Q-on-4Q is the percentage change (growth rate) for the latest four quarters compared to the previous four non-overlapping quarters. This rolling annual growth rate gives a smoothed measure of recent trends. This growth rate is calculated from the Index measure.

• Index represents the level of output in real, or volume, terms for each industry or total GDP, relative to the base year (2019). An index value of more than 100 means that output is higher than in the base year, and a value of less than 100 means that output is lower than in the base year.

• q-on-q is the percentage change (growth rate) for the latest quarter compared to the previous quarter. This quarterly growth rate is usually taken as the headline measure of GDP growth. This growth rate is calculated from the Index measure.

• q-on-q year ago is the percentage change (growth rate) for the latest quarter compared to the same quarter in the previous year. This growth rate over the year is usually compared to other statistics such as earnings or price inflation. This growth rate is calculated from the Index measure.

The Reference Period dimension relates to standard calendar quarters. Quarter 1 refers to the period from January to March, Quarter 2 refers to April to June, Quarter 3 refers to July to September, and Quarter 4 refers to October to December. The Reference Area dimension for this dataset only contains results for Scotland, with no breakdowns to other areas. In this dataset, all results relate to Scotland’s onshore economy and do not include the output of offshore oil and gas extraction in Scottish Adjacent Waters.

Each industry sector is indexed to make them comparable. For each sector, the value during 2019 is taken as the base year, and given the value of 100. All indexed values are chainlinked volume measures, and given relative to the base year.