UK Business Price Growth and Inflation Expectations

Bank of England News

Published March 5th, 2026

Detected March 6th, 2026

Summary

The Bank of England's Decision Maker Panel survey for February 2026 shows realised annual own-price growth at 3.7%, unchanged from the previous month. Year-ahead own-price inflation expectations decreased slightly to 3.4%. The survey also noted a decrease in expected CPI inflation and a slight decline in realised wage growth.

View original document View source feed page

What changed

The Bank of England's February 2026 Decision Maker Panel (DMP) survey data, published on March 5, 2026, indicates that UK businesses reported realised annual own-price growth of 3.7% in the three months to February, remaining unchanged. Expectations for year-ahead own-price inflation slightly decreased to 3.4%, and CPI inflation expectations also saw a marginal reduction. Realised annual wage growth was reported at 4.3%, down 0.1 percentage points from the previous period, while expected wage growth remained stable.

This notice provides an update on key economic indicators as reported by CFOs of UK businesses. While the data reflects current business sentiment and price setting, it does not impose new regulatory obligations. Compliance officers should note these trends as they may inform future economic policy and business planning. The next release is scheduled for April 2, 2026.

Source document (simplified)

Monthly Decision Maker Panel data - February 2026

The Decision Maker Panel (DMP) is a survey of Chief Financial Officers from small, medium and large UK businesses. We use it to monitor developments in the economy and to track businesses’ views.

Published on

05 March 2026 The February 2026 DMP survey was conducted between 6 and 20 February 2026 and received 2,042 responses.

Firms reported that their realised annual own-price growth was 3.7% in the three months to February, unchanged from the three months to January. 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 3.4% in the three months to February, 0.1 percentage points lower than firms reported in the three months to January. Businesses therefore expect output price inflation to slightly fall over the next year, based on three-month averages.

Expectations for year-ahead CPI inflation decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 3.1% in the three months to February. The corresponding measure for three-year-ahead CPI inflation expectations was 2.8% in the three months to February, which is 0.1 percentage points lower relative to the three months to January.

Firms reported that annual wage growth was 4.3% in the three months to February, 0.1 percentage points lower than in the three months to January. Expected year-ahead wage growth remained unchanged at 3.6% in the three months to February. This implies that firms expect their wage growth to decline by 0.7 percentage points over the next 12 months.

Firms reported that realised annual employment growth was -0.2% in the three months to February, up from -0.5% in the three months to January. Expectations for employment growth over the next year improved slightly, rising by 0.3 percentage points to 0.1% in the three months to February.

Monthly aggregate-level data for a limited number of DMP series up to February 2026 (XLSX 0.2MB)
Quarterly aggregate-level data for all survey questions up to January 2026 (XLSX 1MB) The next release date for the DMP survey data will be 2 April 2026. 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.

Convert this page to PDF