The rapidly rising price of food, fuel and energy has left consumers with quite a bleak outlook for the next six months, says GlobalData. The leading data and analytics company’s future sentiment index is at its lowest level since the index began in 2012 excluding the beginning of the pandemic.

The Future Sentiment Index is calculated by averaging consumer responses on their expectations regarding economic outlook, personal finances, and future retail spending prospects for the next six months.

Kunaal Shah, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Its decline has been very steep in the last eight months, falling 38.6 points from -9.4 in June 2021, to its current level of -48.0 as of March 2022, as consumers’ budgets have become stretched.

The ONS reported that the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) had risen by 6.2% in the 12 months to February 2022, the highest level in more than 30 years, and this measure will rise further, at least for the first half of this year.

Shah concludes: “This, combined with the impact of tax rises next month, mean we expect to see a new record low in the future sentiment index in the coming months.”