London's Economy Today - Issue 230 - October 2021

The overview

• Budget and Spending Review
• Higher inflation ahead, despite new data’s false peak
• End of the furlough scheme may have had a soft landing

Economic indicators

• Passenger journeys on London public transport increased going into Autumn with 173.3 million passenger journeys being registered between 22 August 2021 and 18 September, 23.2 million journeys more than in the previous period (25 July – 21 August). In the latest period, 58.2 million of all journeys were underground journeys and 115.2 million were bus journeys.
• In September, the sentiment of London’s PMI business activity index remained positive for the eighth consecutive month with the business activity PMI index for London private firms dropping slightly from 56.0 in August to 55.9 in September. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey shows the monthly business trends at private sector firms. Index readings above 50 suggest a month-on-month increase in activity on average across firms, while readings below 50 indicate a decrease.
• Consumer confidence in London stayed negative in October with the consumer confidence index in London increasing very marginally to -6, from -7 in September. The GfK index of consumer confidence reflects people’s views on their financial position and the general economy over the past year and in the next 12 months. A score above zero suggests positive opinions; a score below zero indicates negative sentiment.

London's Economy Today supplement: GLA 2020-based population and household projections

The GLA 2020-based projections reflect our most up-to-date understanding of the joint impacts of COVID-19 and Brexit on London’s population and incorporate assumptions developed in consultation with an expert panel of academics and demographers.

The 2020-based population projections provide users with outputs based on a number of alternative assumptions and methodologies intended to help them better understand the potential range of trajectories that London’s future population may take.

These outputs include both variant trend projections and housing-led scenario projections. The trend projections provide two projections ranges, a Central Range and a Wider Range:

• The Central Range spans a projected population of between 10.319 and 10.707 million in 2050
• The Wider Range spans a projected population of between 9.546 million and 11.461 million in 2050

The housing-led projections, which are available at a high level of spatial detail, show how London’s population might develop under three different housing delivery scenarios, they are:

• The Identified Capacity scenario
• The Past Delivery scenario
• The Housing Targets scenario

London’s Economy Today data on the Datastore

• The main economic indicators for London are available to download from the Datastore.