The December DMP survey was conducted between 6 and 20 December and received 2,887 responses.
53% of firms reported that Brexit was one of their top three sources of uncertainty in December. That was slightly lower compared to the average of the previous three months. Brexit-related uncertainty remains well above its average since the referendum.
The results of the General Election were announced while the December survey was in the field. Around a third of responses were received after the election. There has been some fall in Brexit-related uncertainty since the election. On an unweighted basis, 55% of firms reported that Brexit was an important source of uncertainty for their business in December prior to the election. That was the same as in November. Post-election, this proportion fell to 49%.
In the December survey, the date at which businesses expected Brexit-related uncertainty to be resolved was also pushed further into the future. That continued a trend seen over recent months. 42% of respondents thought that it would not be resolved until at least 2021, up from 34% in November. The counterpart to this was fewer respondents expecting uncertainty to be resolved in 2020.
Monthly aggregate-level data for a limited number of DMP series up to December:
Quarterly aggregate-level data for all survey questions up to October:
The DMP was set up in August 2016 by the Bank of England together with academics from Stanford University and the University of Nottingham. It was designed to be representative of the population of UK businesses. All results are weighted. See Bloom et al (2017) for more details.
The DMP receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.