Northern Ireland output reaches new high as businesses describe growth and cost pressures

Northern Ireland’s economic activity rose 1% in the second quarter of 2026, reaching a new high in the official index. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) said services and production drove most of the increase. The figures show stronger output through June, while business accounts gathered by BBC News NI point to both overseas opportunities and pressure from everyday costs.

Output was 2.3% higher than in the same quarter of 2025, NISRA said. Its Northern Ireland Composite Economic Index (NICEI) stood 12.7% above its level in the final quarter of 2019, the agency’s pre-pandemic comparison point. The index measures activity across the economy; it does not show that every business or household shared equally in the growth.

What drove the increase

Services and production each contributed 0.4 percentage points to the quarterly rise, according to NISRA. The agency also reported that private-sector output increased 1% over the quarter and 2.2% over the year. Public-sector output rose 0.9% over the quarter and 2.5% over the year. Those are measures of output, rather than a count of firms growing or workers gaining jobs.

NISRA reported an annualised output increase of 2%, comparing activity over four quarters with the preceding four quarters. That is a different measure from the 2.3% increase between the second quarters of 2025 and 2026. The agency classifies NICEI as official statistics in development, based on available official data and subject to revision.

An exporter’s experience

One company describing an opportunity abroad is BLK BOX, a gym equipment maker based in Newtownabbey. Founder Greg Bradley told BBC News NI that it has won contracts with customers including Manchester United and PureGym. The BBC reported that the company employs 180 people and operates internationally across the EU and markets including the US, Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Australia.

Bradley said the company was expanding in France, Spain and Germany. He told the BBC that the Windsor Framework had helped it compete with English rivals, citing business with a French gym chain and Stade Français rugby team. In his account, prospective customers sometimes needed an explanation of shipping arrangements because they feared tariffs. His experience illustrates a route to overseas sales for one firm; the output figures do not establish how widely other exporters share it.

The official output measure and BLK BOX’s account answer different questions. NICEI records changes in economic activity across Northern Ireland. Bradley described contracts and markets for a particular manufacturer. Neither source gives a figure for BLK BOX’s contribution to the quarterly increase, so its overseas business cannot be used to explain the index movement on its own.

Costs remain a concern

The BBC also spoke to pastry chef Daniel Duckett, who said he had closed his east Belfast patisserie in the previous year and reopened in partnership with Knott’s bakery chain at Forestside shopping centre. He said the chain’s buying power helped it control and absorb ingredient costs that would have been harder for his former business to bear.

Duckett said higher petrol prices affected decisions about deliveries to shops across Northern Ireland. He also pointed to weather and storms as risks for ingredients brought from farther away, including tropical fruits, vanilla, cocoa and sugar cane. He said the business would have to watch where those products came from during the second half of the year. His comments describe pressures the bakery faces, not a measured effect on Northern Ireland’s output.

The latest index captures activity through June; it cannot settle how later fuel, food or energy costs will affect businesses. NISRA’s warning that the statistics may be revised is another limit on reading too much into a single quarter. For now, its figures establish a new high in measured activity, while the two business accounts show why a rising index can sit alongside sharply different operating conditions.