Easter typically stands out as a highlight for retailers, as the four-day weekend entices shoppers to spend, particularly in preparation for the summer.
Specifically, home and garden improvements often take priority. Indeed, we find that shoppers will spend £360 million in hardware stores and £923 million in homeware stores over the week.
This is around two-fifths higher than the typical week.
Overall, Cebr anticipates total UK consumer spending to be £10.8 billion over the Easter week, equivalent to £376 per household, a 4% increase from last year’s figure, and slightly higher than 2023’s record high.
Last Easter was a disappointing one for retailers. It was the first since 2020 that spending fell from the year before. This wasn’t helped by the cool weather.
The current forecast is expected to be only slightly warmer than last year. However, the expectation going into Easter last year was that we would face a high chance of rain throughout the weekend, which likely impacted plans even though it didn’t transpire. This year, the forecast is mainly dry, barring a few showers.
Consumers are also feeling more confident. Despite business confidence facing headwinds from recently imposed tax hikes and geopolitical uncertainty, household confidence is at its joint highest level since the immediate post-COVID period in mid-2021. That is according to the YouGov/Cebr Consumer Confidence Index.
The labour market continues to ease, however, with data up to March showing the number of payrolled employees falling, while vacancies are below their pre-pandemic level for the first time since mid-2021. Still, job security remains above its long-run average as of Q4 2024, according to the Robert Half Jobs Confidence Index, powered by Cebr.
Wage growth remains robust. Annual regular pay growth picked up to 5.9% in the quarter to February 2025, well above the rate of inflation. April’s minimum wage rate increase will provide a further boost. While the underlying trend will be one of easing growth, in line with wider conditions, we expect real wage growth to remain firmly in positive territory.
Not everyone is benefitting equally. Direct debit failures in February were almost 40% higher than the average before the pandemic (2019), and have been gradually rising for the past few years [3], while the Asda income tracker, developed by Cebr, shows that those on the lowest incomes faced a 4.2% fall in spending power in the year to February. This is before journalists dubbed the current month ‘Awful April’, in which the average working household will lose almost £1,000 due to the newly enacted policy changes and price increases.
Nonetheless, spending seems to be picking up. Retail sales have grown robustly in the two months to February, according to official data. Since then, Revolut debit card spending data have pointed to a further improvement, with spending in the week to 6 April 6.1% higher than the same time a year ago.
There is no reason for this not to continue into the Easter weekend. The forecast further ahead? I wouldn’t dare try to guess the British weather, but for the UK consumer, it’s more of the same. The climate will continue to get warmer, although there are plenty of dark spots on the horizon that could yet blow us off course, while the outlook remains torrential for those on the lowest incomes.
