4th Mar 2026 09:59
(Alliance News) - The final UK composite purchasing managers index reading was slightly lower than anticipated in February but remained in growth territory, survey publisher S&P Global reported on Wednesday.
The seasonally adjusted S&P Global UK services PMI activity index posted 53.9 for February, in line with the flash estimate released on February 20, and down slightly from January's five-month record of 54.0 points.
Remaining above the 50.0 neutral mark, this indicates that service sector activity continued to grow, albeit marginally slower than in the prior month.
"Business activity continued to pick up across the UK service economy in February, with growth holding close to the five-month high seen at the start of 2026," commented S&P Global Market Intelligence Economics Director Tim Moore. "Survey respondents commented on rising new business intakes and improving sales pipelines. This was linked to greater business and consumer spending, especially in domestic markets. Export orders were relatively subdued, however, and the rate of expansion slipped to a three-month low."
Meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted S&P Global UK PMI composite output index registered 53.7 in February, slightly lower than the 53.9 flash estimate but unchanged from January's reading, indicating steady output growth from the UK private sector.
The composite and services PMI releases follow Monday's S&P Global manufacturing PMI, which edged down a notch to 51.7 points in February from January's 17-month high of 51.8 points, underperforming against the flash reading of 52.0 points.
However, manufacturing production in the UK rose for the fifth consecutive month, with the rate of expansion the fastest since September 2024.
The UK's construction PMI data will be released at 09:30 GMT on Thursday.
The UK services PMI is compiled by S&P Global from questionnaire responses by a panel of about 650 service sector companies in the UK. Last month's data was collected between February 10 and February 25.
The composite PMI output index draws upon the weighted average of the manufacturing and service sector PMI data.
By Emma Curzon, Alliance News reporter
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