Growth in retail sales across Great Britain has slowed, as consumers snapped up technology but cut back on supermarket spending.
Sales volumes grew by 0.3% in September, data from the Office for National Statistics shows, down from 1% growth in August.
It is stronger than expected – City economists had predicted a 0.3% fall for the month.
Computer and telecommunication retailers had strong growth in the month but it was partly offset by decreases in food sales.
The ONS said: "The strongest subsector growth was from other non-food stores, which rose by 5.5% over the month to September 2024. Within 'other non-food', computer and telecommunications retailers had the strongest contribution to growth."
Non-food stores sales volumes – the total of department, clothing, household and other non-food stores – rose by 2.5% in September, after a rise of 0.6% in August.
On an annual basis, retail sales volumes rose by 3.9% in September.
That is the largest annual rise since February 2022.
Deloitte has reported that confidence among UK consumers has reached its highest in more than five years – despite the apparent gloom about this month’s budget. Its latest consumer tracker has found that people are more upbeat about children’s education and welfare, after the introduction of the government’s extended offer of free childcare.
However, the poll also found that consumers are less confident about the state of the economy in the run-up to the autumn budget.
UK companies are cutting back on hiring because of economic uncertainty, data shows.
TheRecruitment & Employment Confederationhas reported that the number of job vacancy adverts dropped below 1.6m last month, for the first time in two years.
The REC said the number of overall active job postings fell by 10% between August and September, to 1,544,753.
The agenda • Today: the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, holds talks with the bosses of major City firms • 9.30am BST: UK insolvency statistics for September • 1.30pm BST: US building permit and housing starts data for September
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