UK consumer confidence flat in Q4 says Deloitte

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 30, 2018

UK consumer confidence was flat quarter-on-quarter during Q4, Deloitte’s latest Consumer Tracker has shown, which means it’s the first time Q4 confidence hasn’t dropped compared to Q3 in all the time the Tracker has been running.

But the survey, carried out this month among 3,000 consumers, still didn’t show consumers feeling ultra-confident with a score of -7% overall for the period.

So always bearing in mind that confidence overall was low, it was nonetheless up four percentage points when it came to confidence in the level of disposable income. And consumer confidence around people’s ability to manage personal debt levels was up by one percentage point.

Meanwhile consumers may still have been cautious over their job security but at least they were feeling a bit better (to the tune of three percentage points) with a reading of -4%. Interestingly though, while they felt slightly more upbeat about their chances of hanging on to their jobs, they weren’t feeling good about job opportunities and chances of progressing in their careers as that measure was down two percentage points.

It would also have been interesting if Deloitte had asked specific industries how they view their job security given the news this month about store closures, jobs cuts and administration filings in the retail sector.

Deloitte’s chief economist Ian Stewart said it all painted a picture of a consumer who is bruised but “in pretty good spirits” at the start of 2018 as low interest rates and low levels of unemployment keep them more upbeat than might have been expected.

But despite this, the Tracker showed that consumers are definitely seeing their incomes squeezed and therefore they remain unwilling to open their purses for too much discretionary spending.

It showed discretionary spend falling by one percentage point year-on-year in Q4, but spending on essentials up by two percentage points as the effects of inflation forced them to spend more.