By Joshua Kirby
The U.K. economy stagnated in the third quarter for the first time this year, after slight growth in September offset a decline at the start of the quarter.
Gross domestic product was flat between July and September compared with the previous three-month period, when the economy grew slightly, as it had in the first quarter, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed Friday.
Economists had expected GDP to decline slightly, according to a poll carried out by The Wall Street Journal, though the flat growth was against an August figure that was revised down slightly to 0.1% growth from 0.2% previously.
In September, the economy grew 0.2%, driven mainly by services growth. This helped offset a 0.6% decline in July.
Compared with the same quarter a year ago, the U.K. economy grew 0.6%, the figures showed.
Write to Joshua Kirby at joshua.kirby@wsj.com; @joshualeokirby