BUSINESS LIVE: UK wage growth maintains record pace

Shares in an online gaming group co-owned by David Beckham surged after it signed another deal with Sky.

Guild Esports, whose teams of video game professionals compete against rivals for money, appointed Sky Glass as its official television partner.

Sky Glass is the streaming TV service from Sky that does not require a satellite dish.

British wages excluding bonuses were 7.8 per cent per cent higher than a year earlier in the three months to July, unchanged from the three months to June, but fresh Office for National Statistics data shows signs that Britain’s labour market is finally cooling.

The unemployment rate rose to 4.3 per cent in the three months to July from 4.2 per cent a month earlier, its highest since the three months to September 2021.

The unemployment rate is already higher than the 4.1 per cent the Bank of England had pencilled in for the third quarter as a whole, when it published its last set of forecasts in early August.

The figures will be scrutinised ahead of the BoE’s next interest rate decision, with the bank likely to be encouraged by a softening labour market but cautious of still-high wage growth.