Monthly Decision Maker Panel data - April 2025

The April DMP survey was conducted between 4 and 18 April and received 2,104 responses.

Firms reported that their output prices rose by an average annual rate of 3.5% in the three months to April, 0.1 percentage points lower than the three months to March. Note that the DMP covers own prices from firms across the whole economy, not just consumer-facing firms.

Year-ahead own-price inflation was expected to be 3.8% in the three months to April, 0.1 percentage points lower than firms reported in the three months to March. Businesses therefore expect output price inflation to increase by 0.3 percentage points over the next year, based on three-month averages. This has been stable since February.

Expectations for year-ahead CPI inflation remained unchanged at 3.2% in the three months to April. The corresponding measure for three-years ahead CPI inflation expectations was 2.8% in the three months to April, which was unchanged from the three months to January. 

Firms reported that annual wage growth was 4.8% in the three months to April, 0.2 percentage points lower than in the three months to March. Expected year-ahead wage growth fell by 0.1 percentage points to 3.8% on a three-month moving-average basis in April  . The single month figure was around 3.9% since November last year, but fell in April to the lowest expected wage growth to 3.5%.  Firms expect their wage growth to decline by 1 percentage point over the next 12 months, based on three-month averages.
 
This month firms were asked about the potential impacts of the implementation of US tariffs  on their sales over the next year, and associated uncertainty. Please note that these questions were only asked in one of the three sub-panels to a third of firms. 68% of firms expected these tariffs to have no impact on their sales and 31% of firms expected their sales to be lower over the year ahead. Only 1% of firms expected to see an increase in their sales as a result of the introduction of tariffs.

US tariffs were reported to be one of the top three sources of uncertainty for 23% of businesses. Within the sample period, it was announced that the introduction of some additional tariffs on goods entering the US would be paused for 90 days  . Around half of the survey responses came before this pause. Comparing the uncertainty before and after the pause, more firms reported that tariffs were an important source of uncertainty after the pause. Fewer firms expected a negative impact on sales after the pause.