close
Finance

Total Expenditure in Different Economic Sectors

The 2008 recession continues to affect how people in the UK spend their money. Since 2005, the figures for total consumption expenditures have remained largely stable. However, spending trends within different industries have shifted drastically. Costs of everyday necessities have continued to rise, so people have less income to spend in other sectors like tourism. Another heavily influenced sector is alcohol, tobacco and narcotics. Spending in those industries has sharply decreased since 2008.

Steady Rise in Housing and Health

The overall expenditure in the housing sector, as detailed in an infographic by Swift Money, has steadily increased every year since 1997. Even the recession of 2008 doesn’t appear to have affected spending in the housing industry, as the total expenditure numbers continue to climb.

Spending in the health sector has risen as well. Since 1997, it has increased by a large percentage—more than 43% overall. Additionally, there were a couple of years (2007 and 2012) where spending sharply spiked upward, beyond the steady trend line.

Economic Trends in Food and Drink, Transport

Because consumers are spending more money on housing and health, they are spending less money in other economic sectors. Total expenditure on food and drink dropped steadily from 2007 to 2011. However, this downward trend did not continue as some may have expected. Since 2011, figures for food and drink spending have begun to rise again.

The transport sector has followed a similar path. Transport spending dropped swiftly from 2008 to 2011. The exact figure of the drop was 8% of the total expenditure. However, the transport industry has begun to recover in recent years. In fact, total spending in the transport sector for 2014 is nearly identical to the figure from 2007. It will be interesting to see how the food and drink and transport spending numbers change over the next few years.

Swift Money infographic final-page-001