Correct as at 2 November 2026.
UK factory gate prices rose 4.6% in the year to September, the most since April 2023, and input costs rose 8.3%, mainly because of oil-related products.
What do the latest producer price figures show?
Annual input, output and services inflation all rose, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
Producer input prices, which measure the materials and fuels UK manufacturers buy, rose 8.3% in the year to September, up from a revised 6.7% in August. It was the largest rise since May 2026.
Output prices, also called factory gate prices (what manufacturers receive for goods sold on the domestic market, excluding taxes), rose 4.6%, up from a revised 3.8%.
On the month, input prices rose 1.5%, against a revised 0.5% in August. Output prices rose 0.8%, against 0.7%. The index levels for September were 169.7 for input prices and 151.0 for output prices.
Services producer prices rose 4.5% in the year to the third quarter, the largest rise since the second quarter of 2023 and up from a revised 4.2% in the second quarter. The quarterly rise was 0.9%, down from a revised 1.9%.
Import prices rose 9.9% on the year, up from a revised 7.3%. Export prices rose 8.5%, up from a revised 7.3%. The sterling effective exchange rate rose 0.3% on the year, down from 0.8% in August.
Which products are driving the rise?
Oil and refined petroleum products, mainly, according to the ONS producer price release, which said the data continue to be affected by the conflict in the Middle East.
Crude oil made the largest contribution to annual input inflation, with prices up 51.0% on the year. That compares with a revised 29.9% in the year to August. Crude oil prices rose 14.0% in September alone, against a revised 2.1% in August.
On the output side, coke and refined petroleum products made the largest upward contribution. Their prices rose 63.3% on the year, up from a revised 50.8% in August. Monthly, they rose 9.1%, slightly below a revised 9.7% the month before.
Nine of the 10 input product groups made upward contributions to the annual rate, and eight of 10 output groups did. In services, transportation and storage made the largest contribution, with prices up 10.7% on the year.
Plastics also featured. Output prices for other manufactured goods rose 3.6%, unchanged from August, which the ONS tied to higher PVC and resin input costs attributed to the Middle East conflict.
Which prices are falling?
Food and motor vehicles, which partly offset the oil effect.
Domestic food input prices fell 1.3% on the year, a smaller fall than the revised 1.5% in August. The ONS said milk from dairy cattle was a partial cause. It was the only offsetting downward contribution to input inflation.
Food product output prices fell 0.6%, against a revised fall of 1.0% in August, partly because of lower dairy and cheese prices. Motor vehicles also made a downward contribution to output inflation.
What does the oil rise mean in practice?
Crude oil is up 51.0% in a year, and the arithmetic compounds quickly.
Take a crude oil input that cost £100 a year ago. At the September annual rate of 51.0% it now costs £151.00.
Refined petroleum products at 63.3% would turn the same £100 into £163.30.
Separately, the 14.0% monthly rise in crude in September means an input costing £100 in August would cost £114 in September.
These are illustrations of the published rates, not a forecast. Crude petroleum and natural gas, together with metal ores, carry a weight of 6.9% in the 2026 input index, so the headline moves by less than the product rate.
The gap also shows in the headlines. Input inflation at 8.3% is 3.7 percentage points above output inflation at 4.6%. The figures do not say how much of the difference manufacturers are absorbing.
How reliable are the figures?
They are provisional, and are often revised.
The ONS treats the latest two months of the Producer Price Index as provisional and says the latest 12 months can be revised as late survey returns arrive, as set out in its quality and methodology report. Revisions can be material.
The estimate for August input inflation was first published at 6.1% in the August bulletin and has since been revised to 6.7%. Output inflation for August went from 3.7% to 3.8%.
The ONS said the July revisions were substantially influenced by crude oil and refined petroleum data, the same products now driving the headline.
If you work with a contract or budget indexed to producer prices, the latest reading may change, so check which vintage of the data the contract specifies. That is a point about the data, not a view on pricing.
The ONS notes that bodies including the Ministry of Defence, BEAMA and the Building Cost Information Service use the indices.
There are wider quality caveats. Publication of the producer price data was suspended in March 2025 after an error in the chain-linking methodology, and the ONS restarted it after correcting the index weights.
Its development plan said 69.8% of the sample by weight had been updated, with the remaining divisions due by February 2026.
The Office for Statistics Regulation said in its earlier review that the ONS was not achieving its target number of price observations, and in some cases could not provide a reliable deflator for certain industries. It called the survey problems “the biggest threat to the quality of the statistics”.
The producer price survey is statutory, and businesses in it are required to provide price data within 10 days of the request.
