Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said the figures showed economic activity had accelerated despite uncertainty in the lead up to the Budget.
“Despite the relatively mooted consumer sentiment so far and consumer-facing services output declining in November, there are some tentative signs of a pick-up in household spending,” she said.
“With the worst of the uncertainty behind businesses, we expect growth momentum to continue over the coming months.”
Suren Thiru, economics director at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, said the “unexpectedly upbeat” November figures suggested that most sectors had “seemingly shrugged off pre-Budget uncertainty”.
“November’s uptick means it’s inevitable that the UK economy grew modestly across the final quarter of 2025 with easing uncertainty post-Budget likely to have supported growth in December, despite the ‘super flu’ disrupting activity in sectors like education,” he said.
Construction output fell by 1.3% in November, and the ONS said the sector also registered “its largest three-monthly fall in nearly three years”.
Ruth Gregory, deputy chief economist at Capital Economics, said the fall in construction was probably due to “unseasonably wet weather” and was likely to rebound in December.
However, Gregory said the increase in services output did “little more than reverse the big declines in the past few months”.
“So we think November’s strength is more likely to be a rebound rather than a sign that the economy is fundamentally stronger than we thought,” she said.
Part of the rebound came from the continued pick up in Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) production, which drove the 25.5% increase in motor vehicle output in November.
JLR was forced to halt production at its plants across the UK for the whole of September, following a cyber-attack. Production began to resume in a staged manner from October.
