Britain's services sector bounced back faster than expected in February to record its strongest expansion in more than three years, a survey showed on Wednesday.
Coupled with a surprisingly robust manufacturing survey earlier this week, the figures suggest the recovery is gaining traction after January's snow-related loss of pace.
The four point jump in the CIPS/Markit services PMI index — to 58.4 from 54.5 — more than reversed January's fall and took the index to its highest level since January 2007.
None of the 30 economists polled by Reuters had forecast such a sharp improvement. The consensus forecast had been for a reading of 54.9.
"February's report on service sector activity indicated a marked rebound from the snow-related slowdown in January," said Paul Smith, an economist at Markit.
"The latest data confirm that the underlying trend in the private service sector remains positive, and is on course to deliver a quarterly expansion above 1 percent in the first quarter."
Britain's services sector has expanded for the past 10 consecutive months, according to the PMI survey.
But the strength of this survey has not been fully reflected in official data, which shows Britain's economy did not pull out of recession until the fourth quarter of last year, when services output grew by 0.5 percent.
The new business index rose to 57.5, its highest since September 2007, after slowing to a five-month low of 53.4 in January.
The survey showed large companies led the upturn in February, while smaller firms lagged behind.
The sharpest rise in both activity and new business was recorded in the transport and communications sector, reflecting payback from the snow-related disruption at the start of the year. Financial intermediation was the only category to register a decline in new business.
Business expectations remained strongly positive in February but the degree of confidence was slightly weaker than at the start of the year.
Firms' output prices rose for a second consecutive month in February but more slowly than input prices, which rose at their fastest pace since October 2008.
