Monthly Decision Maker Panel data - June 2023

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 06 July 2023

The June DMP survey was conducted between 9 and 23 June and received 2,290 responses.

Realised output price inflation declined to 6.9% in June, down from 7.6% in May. The three-month moving average also fell from 7.6% to 7.3%. Note that the DMP covers own prices from firms across the whole economy, not just consumer-facing firms.

Looking ahead, businesses expect output price inflation to fall over the next year as the year-ahead output price inflation was expected to be 5.3% in the three months to June, down from 5.4% in the three months to May. 

One-year ahead CPI inflation expectations decreased to 5.7% in June, down from 5.9% in May. However, three-year ahead CPI inflation expectations slightly increased to 3.7% in June, up 0.2 percentage points relative to May. Current CPI perceptions of firms were 8.9% (down from 9.8% in May) which is close to the 8.7% actual CPI inflation rate during the survey window.

In June, firms reported that annual unit cost growth remained stable at 9.4%, and expectations for year-ahead unit cost growth increased by 0.5 percentage points relative to May. However, the three-month averages were little changed.

Expected year-ahead wage growth slightly increased to 5.3% on the month in June (up from 5.2% in May) although the three-month moving average decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 5.3%.

In June, 47% of firms reported that the overall level of uncertainty facing their business was high or very high (down from 54% in May), but the three-month average increased slightly to 50%. This follows a clear downward trend in the series since September. Both sales and price uncertainty increased slightly in the monthly series, although the three-month moving averages decreased for both series. Price uncertainty remains at relatively high levels.

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.