UK GDP since 1955

There may have been enough in the data to cheer up George Osborne but GDP is still 3.3% below its pre-crisis peak. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Britain's economy grew by 0.6% in the second quarter of 2013, in line with City estimates, according to the latest release from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

As our economics editor, Larry Elliott, comments on the business blog today, the result is "good but unspectacular". According to the blog:

If it continued over a whole year then it would mean annual growth of just under 2.5% -- which would have been unspectacular in the years before the financial crisis struck.

However, the ONS express caution when comparing the second quarter of 2013 with the same period in 2012, due to the extra bank holiday last year for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

The economic recovery since the crash of 2008 is the slowest since 1921.

A technical recession is defined as two or more consecutive quarters of economic decline. That means the UK just missed its third recession in four years.

The data we have gathered shows percentage change in GDP going back to 1955 by quarter.

The spreadsheet to download shows GDP in cash, ie what it was that year not adjusted for inflation, total inflation-adjusted figures and per capita inflation adjusted figures.

And this is how it compares. While we are below the US and Japan - the UK is doing better than the rest of Europe.

The ONS explains today's data as follows:

• By far the largest contribution to Q2 2013 GDP growth came from services; these industries increased by 0.6% contributing 0.48 percentage points (pp) to the 0.6% increase in GDP.
• There was also an upward contribution (0.08pp) from production; these industries rose by 0.6%, with manufacturing increasing by 0.4% following negative growth in Q1 2013
• Construction has also done well in Q2 2013. Output in the construction industry was estimated to have increased by 0.9% compared with Q1 2013. In Q1 2013 construction output was at its lowest level since Q1 2001
• Before the sharp fall in output in 2008 and 2009 the economy peaked in Q1 2008. From peak to trough the economy shrank by 7.2%. In Q2 2013, GDP was estimated to be 3.3% below the peak in Q1 2008

You can find out who gets access to this data early too by clicking here.

GDP since 1955: roll over line for data

This is just an estimate: we get one each month for the next two and it can be revised up or down. The ONS explains how its dataset is not complete yet:

At this stage it is estimated that the information content of this estimate is around 44% of the total required for the final output based estimate. This includes good information for the first two months of the quarter, with an estimate for the third month which takes account of early returns to the monthly business survey of 44,000 businesses (which typically has a response rate of between 30-50% at this point in time). The estimate is therefore subject to revisions as more data becomes available, but between the preliminary and third estimates of GDP, revisions are typically small (around 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points), with the frequency of upward and downward revisions broadly equal.

As several of our posters below have pointed out, there's more to life than GDP – but here are the latest GDP figures from the ONS for you to explore.

£m. Click heading to sort table. Download the data

Gross Domestic Product in Year, quarterGross Domestic Product: Quarter on Quarter Growth.GDP, adjusted for inflation, £m GDP, not adjusted for inflation £mGDP per person, £m, inc inflation

DATA: UK GDP since 1948

• SOURCE: ONS

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