After April’s cost increases, and with Trump’s tariffs threatening, the UK could be on the verge of a new round of high inflation, suggests GfK, whose long-running Consumer Confidence Index decreased by four points to -23 in April. All measures were down in comparison to last month’s announcement. The Major Purchase Index was down two points at -19 (six points better than this month last year).
Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, an NIQ Company, says: “Headline confidence is down four points in April, led by two sharp drops in our economic measures. There’s an eight-point fall from -29 to -37 in how people see the wider economy in the coming year, and a five-point dip for the past year’s economic performance. The future indicator on personal finances has also slipped badly, dropping four points to -3.
"There are good reasons for this downturn. Consumers have not only been grappling with multiple April cost increases in the form of utilities, council tax, stamp duty, and road tax, but they are also hearing dire warnings of renewed high inflation on the back of the Trump tariffs. The inflation rate eased in March, but are we now on the verge of another round of rapidly increasing prices? If so, consumer confidence is likely to collapse and the broad gains seen since the disastrous September 2022 minibudget, when confidence hit a record low of -49, could quickly be eroded.”
These are the current findings of the GfK Consumer Confidence Barometer (CCB), powered by NIM. The CCB has been published jointly by GfK and the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions (NIM), the founder of GfK, since October 2023.
