Business Subject Guide

Students and staff living in Scotland can register with the National Library of Scotland, and access their databases online. These include

• D & B Hoovers (profiles of 120 million global companies, market research and business news)
• Frost and Sullivan (global market analysis for chemical, energy, environmental and building technologies, healthcare, IT and manufacturing sectors)
• IBISWorld (UK market research reports, including statistics, analysis and forecasts, risk ratings, and business environment profiles).

The British Library's industry guides provide useful links and recommended resources for various business sectors.
MARCH 2025: The British Library also previously provided online access to various databases and other electronic resources. However, following a cyberattack on the British Library, these are not currently available.

The UK Data Service provides access to social, economic and population data, covering subjects including economics, work ("labour"), health and politics. The website has quantitative and qualitative data, from the UK and also international sources including the IMF, World Bank and OECD

The government body responsible for gathering and publishing economic and social data and statistics about the UK.

HM Treasury releases a range of financial statistics for the UK including:

• Forecasts for the UK Economy
• Gross Domestic Product Deflators (a measure of general inflation in the UK economy. Other inflation measures including CPI and RPI are on the Office of National Statistics Inflation and Price Indexes page).
• Public Sector Finances Bulletin (public sector income and expenditure, including government borrowing).

This site has links to sources of economics data, including market data, house prices, commodity prices, etc.

This site has information about where to find historical UK data, including population sizes; economic information e.g. costs, prices, inflation and fiscal data; agricultural, energy and climate change information from the 1800s onwards; etc.

Data sources for non-UK countries can be found on the Economics, International Business, and Business Analytics subject guide.