Northern Ireland (NI) has persistently had the lowest productivity of the UK’s twelve regions. But it saw an improvement during the Covid-19 pandemic, moving up to 7th place.
The most recently published data shows this improvement has not been sustained. Productivity in NI was 13% below the UK average in 2022, widening from 11% in 2021. This led to NI falling back to 10th place amongst the UK’s twelve regions, ahead of only the East Midlands and Wales. NI also lags behind the Republic of Ireland, where productivity is 8% higher than the UK average. This means productivity in NI is 20% lower than in the Republic of Ireland.
The dashboard assesses NI’s performance across the key drivers of productivity, which provide the foundations for long-run productivity growth. Overall, there has been no change from last year’s dashboard. 14 of the dashboard’s 18 drivers are red and below the UK average. Only 2 drivers are green and therefore better than the UK average; and 2 drivers are either equal to the UK average, or below this but above the UK median.
Across the three editions of the dashboard since 2022, it is clear that NI possesses deep-seated issues that must be addressed before we will see meaningful progress. While some drivers have seen both short and long-term improvements – such as exports and qualifications – these are in the minority. 8 drivers have experienced no improvement in either the short and/or long-term.
With the return of the NI Executive in February 2024, and the new draft Programme for Government, there is an opportunity for the Executive to make progress in improving these key drivers of productivity. This will require a long-term commitment to prioritising productivity when designing, implementing, and evaluating policy.
Authors: Ruth Donaldson (Queen’s University Belfast), David Jordan (Queen’s University Belfast), John Turner (Queen’s University Belfast)
