The Scottish economy in ten essential charts

From the size of its banks, to an ageing population, here are ten charts that explain how Scotland's economy might fare after a Yes vote

The basics


Gross Domestic Household Income (GDHI) represents the money we have left to spend or save after paying taxes and benefits. On this measure, Scots lag behind the average for the UK (above). London has the highest GDHI per head at £21,446.


Measured in terms of GDP per person, Scotland is one of the richest countries in Europe, and the 14th wealthiest in the OECD, according to the Scottish government.

At nearly $40,000 per person, Scotland ranks higher than the UK ($35,000), largely on account of its oil and gas wealth.

But any independent nation would still have to find a way to balance its books. Scotland's structural deficit is much higher in comparison to countries of its equivalent wealth (below). This task is likely to become more difficult as the North Sea's reserves diminish over time.

A demographic time-bomb?

Like the rest of Britain, Scotland has an ageing population, but its long-term demographic problems are likely to be worse.

Over the next 50 years, the number of Scots in the workforce will actually shrink. Scotland's population is projected to grow by just 4.4pc between 2012 and 2062, compared with 22.8pc in the UK as a whole, according to the ONS.

To make matters worse, this growth will mostly be among the over-65s, while those of working age will actually fall (below).

These trends will likely squeeze Scottish coffers; such demographic shifts would put pressure on the independent nation's healthcare services and pensions provisions while reducing the number of people it can tax.

Oil and gas

The future of the North Sea energy industry has emerged as one of the hot political potatoes in the independence debate, largely because the Scottish economy would be so reliant on it.

The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government's independent fiscal watchdog, predicts that production and revenues from all the UK's oil and gas fields will decline significantly in the years to come.

The SNP have estimated that revenues could increase by £2.4bn, a situation contingent on high prices and production levels, and falling costs for exploration and investment.

But whatever the differences, there is no doubt that we won't reach anywhere near the peak of 2008-09, when oil and gas fields yielded £12.4bn for the British exchequer. The OBR predict this will amount to only £3.7bn, next year.

Spend, spend, spend

North Sea energy is also crucial given the level of the Scottish government's outlays. On average, Scotland spends 16pc more per head of its population than the rest of the UK, averaging at £10,152 per person. In England, the figure is only £8,530 per person, while London is the highest spending English city at £9,435.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, this additional spending is largely met by revenues from the oil and gas industry which are greater for Scotland than for the rest of the UK.


Taking into account an ageing population and the higher initial levels of government debt the newly sovereign nation will start off with, the IFS predict Scotland's net borrowing to rise over the course of the next 50 years, reaching 10pc of national income by 2047.

As a result, Scotland is projected to accumulate debt at a faster rate, and face rising interest payments as markets charge a premium for lending to the newly independent state.


Scottish exports to the rest of Britain dwarf its trade with other partners. Excluding oil and gas, the total value of its exports to the rest of the UK was £47.6bn, over half of which was from services likes banking and insurance. Total exports to its next ten biggest European export markets put together is less than £12bn.

The Scottish government estimates that, in the event of independence, the country could export goods and services worth almost £100bn, putting it among the top 35 exporters in the world.

The ease of trade between Scotland, the UK and the rest of Europe would be dependent on a number of yet undetermined factors, such as whether or not the independent nation remains part of a sterling union and becomes a member of the European Union.


Scotland's banking assets stand at twelve times its national output, or £1.89 trillion, according to the Bank of England.The figure for the rest of the UK is only around five times of GDP. By comparison, Iceland's assets were around eight times the size of the economy when its banks went bust in 2007.

Credit Suisse say an independent Scotland is "overexposed to financial services" which make up 13pc of GDP and 7pc of all jobs.

But with the likes of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds already saying they would re-domicile to England in the event of a Yes vote, this would substantially reducing the new economy's exposure to bank failure, while causing the ratio of banking assets to GDP in the rest of the UK to shoot up.