Scottish Annual Business Statistics 2015

31st August 2017

Scotland's Chief Statistician released Scottish Annual Business Statistics (SABS) 2015 on 30th August 2017.

The publication includes financial and employment statistics on businesses operating in Scotland, by industry sector, local authority area and business ownership. The statistics cover the non-financial business economy and are best suited to analyses of individual industries. The financial sector, parts of the agricultural sector and parts of the public sector are not included in the SABS data.

The main findings include:

In 2015, approximate Gross Value Added (GVA) in the services sector amounted to £54.4 billion, compared to £12.5 billion in manufacturing and £7.1 billion in the construction sector. The remaining sectors covered by SABS (dominated by oil/gas extraction and utilities sectors) accounted for £16.0 billion of Scotland’s non-financial business economy.

Between 2014 and 2015, GVA in the services sector increased by £2.6 billion (5.0 per cent) and construction GVA increased by £0.6 billion (8.4% per cent). However, manufacturing GVA reduced by £0.9 billion (-7.0 per cent). GVA for the remaining sectors, covered by SABS, reduced by £1.9 billion (-10.6 per cent); this was largely due to falling GVA in the oil and gas extraction sector driven by the decline in the oil price.

In 2015, within the services sector, the two largest contributions to GVA came from: retail trade at £6.6 billion (12.1 per cent of total services GVA) and architectural/engineering activities at £5.0 billion (9.2 per cent).

In 2015, within manufacturing, the two largest contributions to GVA came from: the beverages sector at £2.3 billion (18.5 per cent of total manufacturing GVA) and food products at £1.5 billion (12.2 per cent).

In 2015, the local authority areas contributing most to total GVA within the manufacturing sector were Fife (10.7 per cent), Aberdeen City (9.5 per cent) and Glasgow City (8.6 per cent).

In 2015, only 4.7 per cent of business sites in the Scottish non-financial business economy were foreign-owned, however these foreign-owned businesses contributed 29.2 per cent of Scotland's non-financial business economy GVA. The share of GVA accounted for by foreign-owned businesses varies considerably by sector.

The figures released today were produced in accordance with professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

The full statistical publication is available at:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Business/SABS

The Scottish Annual Business Statistics (SABS) are based on the Annual Business Survey (ABS) conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Summary 2015 data, for all regions and countries within the UK, were published by ONS on 20 July 2017 and are available at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/bulletins/uknonfinancialbusinesseconomyannualbusinesssurvey/previousReleases

The results published today present more detailed 2015 figures for Scotland, with revised figures for 2014.