The September DMP survey was conducted between 5 and 19 September and received 2,090 responses.
Firms reported that their realised annual own-price growth rose slightly, by 0.1 percentage points to 3.8% in the three months to September. Note that the DMP covers own prices from firms across the whole economy, not just consumer-facing firms.
In the three months to September, firms reported that their year-ahead own-price inflation was expected to be 3.7%, unchanged from the three months to July. This implies that firms expect a fall in own-price inflation by 0.1 percentage points over the next year.
Expectations for year-ahead CPI inflation rose by 0.1 percentage points to 3.4% in the three months to September. The corresponding measure for three-year ahead CPI inflation expectations also remained unchanged at 2.9% in the three months to September.
Firms reported that annual wage growth was 4.6% in the three months to September, unchanged from in the three months to August. Expected year-ahead wage growth remained unchanged in September at 3.6% on a three-month moving-average basis. The single month figure rose by 0.3 percentage points to 3.8%. This implies that firms expected their wage growth to decline by 1 percentage point over the next 12 months, based on these three-month averages.
Realised annual employment growth remained unchanged at -0.5% in the three months to September. Expectations for employment growth over the next year have weakened, falling by 0.2 percentage points to 0.0% in the three months to September. Firms also reported on their recruitment difficulties. The average percentage of firms reporting that recruitment was much harder was 9% between August and September, unchanged from the average between February and April 2025. The average proportion of firms reporting that it was easier than normal to recruit staff was 19% between August and September, 1 percentage point below the average of 20% between February and April 2025.
In the three months to September, 58% of firms reported that the overall level of uncertainty facing their business was high or very high, representing a 1 percentage point increase from the 57% reported in August. Uncertainty around year-ahead sales fell by 0.1 percentage points to 4.3%, and price uncertainty remained unchanged at 1.7% in the three months to September. Both sales and price uncertainty remain well below their peaks of recent years.
Published on
02 October 2025
Please note that the monthly data tables on this page were updated at 10.59am following the identification of an error. The corrected data reflects accurate information as of this update. The specific errors identified and corrected were as follows: expected wage growth over the next year for August and September 2025 in the wage growth tab; CPI inflation perceptions and expectations for September 2025 in the CPI expectations tab. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
The DMP was set up in August 2016 and is run by the Bank of England in collaboration with King’s College London and the University of Nottingham. It was designed to be representative of the population of UK businesses. All results are weighted. See Bunn et al (2024) for more details.
The DMP receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.