ONS Launches Weekly Dashboard Tracking UK Economic Activity and Social Change

The Office for National Statistics has replaced its weekly bulletin with an interactive dashboard drawing on data from Rightmove, Revolut, the Insolvency Service and shipping trackers to give a faster read on the UK economy.

The ONS updated its Economic Activity and Social Change real-time indicators dashboard this week, providing a weekly overview of UK economic conditions and broader social trends based on rapid-response surveys, private-sector data and administrative records. The shift to a dashboard format took effect from 26 March 2026, when the previous weekly bulletin was replaced — though a more detailed monthly statistical bulletin continues alongside it.

The figures show the dashboard pulls together an unusually wide range of sources: automotive fuel spending from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, advance redundancy notifications via Insolvency Service HR1 forms, housing market data from Rightmove, Revolut debit card transaction indices, domestic Energy Performance Certificate data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, retail footfall broken down by UK region and location type, and weekly ship visits to and from selected UK ports tracked by exactEarth. ONS classifies all of these as “official statistics in development” — meaning they meet high standards but methods are still being refined and figures may be revised.

The ONS has been publishing faster indicators since March 2020, when the programme launched to monitor the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. It has since expanded into a broader real-time monitoring tool used by policymakers to track short-term conditions — but ONS is clear that these indicators do not replace headline statistics such as GDP, inflation or the main labour market surveys.

Kent residents and businesses don’t get a county-level breakdown from the dashboard — the public data sits at UK or Great Britain level — but several of the underlying series are relevant locally. Retail footfall includes regional breakdowns covering South East England. The weekly shipping indicators, which track port visits, could reflect activity at the Port of Dover and Port of Sheerness, though explicit port-level Kent figures are not published in the dashboard and remain unverified. Changes in redundancy notifications or card spending visible in the national data may still signal shifts in employment or retail conditions that affect Kent communities.

Bodies such as Kent County Council and local economic partnerships can use the national and regional data to benchmark Kent’s performance against broader trends, according to ONS guidance on the programme. The ONS Real Time Indicators team invites user feedback via a dedicated email contact on the dashboard.

Key information

• The dashboard is updated weekly and is free to access via the ONS website
• Statistics are classified as “official statistics in development” — figures may be revised as methods improve
• A more detailed monthly statistical bulletin accompanies the weekly dashboard
• User feedback can be submitted to the ONS Real Time Indicators team via the contact provided on the dashboard