Changes in shares of output
Table 1.2 uses percentage shares of total output (GDP at factor cost) to show changes in the relative importance of the sectors presented in Table 1.1.
The primary sector was in relative decline between 1964 and 1973 because of the contraction of output in coal-mining.
From a low point of 4.2% of GDP in 1973, the primary sector sharply increased its share to 6.7% in 1979 and 9.5% in 1984 (not shown), an unusual trend in a developed economy and almost entirely attributable to the growth of North Sea oil and gas production. By 1990 the primary sector’s share had slumped to 3.9%. This dramatic change was caused, in part, by the collapse of oil prices during 1986. Since 1990, there has been further decline in agriculture, forestry and fishing but a small improvement in mining and quarrying (including oil), so that the decline in the primary sector share of GDP over the period 1990-2009 was only 0.2%, falling from 3.9% to 3.7%.The secondary sector’s share of output fell from a peak of 42.0% in 1969 to only 31.5% in 1990; the recession then further reduced this to 19.4% by 2009. This long-term decline in the secondary sector is inevitable as the share of manufacturing in GDP falls. By 1990 manufacturing produced only 22.5% of UK output, which fell further to 11.6% by 2009.
The tertiary sector’s share of output has grown throughout the period since 1969, necessarily so as the shares of the primary and secondary sectors have fallen. The financial sector plus real estate, renting and business activities virtually trebled their combined share of output between 1964 and 2009, accounting for nearly a third of total GDP by 2009 - the largest share of UK output in that year.
With the exception of the growth of the North Sea sector, these changes in economic structure have occurred throughout the advanced industrial countries (see Table 1.3).
The fall in the share of manufacturing in GDP in the UK is typical of the other industrial market economies, and the growth in the share of the service sector has been similar to the average for such economies. This has led some to interpret the changes in UK economic structure as inevitable, giving more recently industrialized countries a glimpse of the future. However, to be complacent because the relative position of the sectors in the UK has changed in line with that in other advanced industrialized countries is to ignore the UK’s dramatic and unrivalled fall in the volume of non-oil industrial production between 1973 and 1981, outlined above in the section on changes in output. Of especial concern has been the negligible growth rate of manufacturing output in the UK between 1973 and 2009; indeed the volume figure for UK manufacturing in 2009 is very similar to that for 1973 (see Table 1.1 above).Table 1.3 Industrial market economies, distribution of GDP: percentages.
| 1960 | 1980 | 1985 | 2008 | |
| Agriculture | 6.0 | 3.1 | 2.6 | 1.8 |
| Industry | 41.0 | 36.5 | 34.2 | 28.1 |
| (manufacturing) | (30.4) | (24.7) | bgcolor=white>(23.2)(17.4) | |
| Services | 53.0 | 60.4 | 63.2 | 70.1 |
Sources: OECD (2002) OECD in Figures, and previous issues; OECD (2010c) OECD Factbook 2010.