Richard Pike, Phoebus Software sales and marketing director, says “Today’s GDP figures are unsurprising, and although GDP shows good growth in Q3, it is still at a lower level than pre-COVID. Schemes such as “eat out” clearly helped in the first two months, but after that expired we see that the economy in September really slowed down. This trend will undoubtedly follow again in October and November, and it remains to be seen if there will be a Christmas boost to consumer spending this year as is usually the case. In the longer-term, you cannot take these figures in isolation.

Last weeks’ announcement of large increases in benefit claimants and redundancies, coupled with a predicted 2% dip in Q4 GDP (by the Bank of England), really doesn’t bode well for growth in Q1 2021, with or without a vaccination programme commencing. With reports coming out that the initial housing market stamp duty spike is now beginning to slow down, Q2 2021 is really looking like a pivotal quarter for economic performance in many areas, which will be indicative of what we can hope for the remainder of next year.”