UK retail sales volumes have in recent weeks shown their sharpest year-on-year drop since the depths of the 2008/09 recession, a survey has revealed, signalling intense pressure on household finances.

The Confederation of British Industry published its grim retail report as an annual survey from the Office for National Statistics confirmed UK pay fell in real terms year-on-year for the first time since 2014.

The ONS survey showed full-time workers’ weekly earnings decreased by 0.4 per cent over the year to April, when adjusted for inflation. Median nominal gross weekly earnings for full-time employees in the UK in April were £550, up 2.2 per cent from £539 a year earlier. However, the annual UK consumer prices index inflation rate, which has been fuelled by sterling’s post-Brexit vote weakness, had by April climbed to 2.6 per cent.

Of retailers surveyed by the CBI between September 27 and October 13, 50 per cent said sales volumes were lower than a year earlier and 15 per cent declared they were higher, with 35 per cent reporting an unchanged position.

The rounded net 36 per cent reporting a year-on-year fall in sales volumes signalled the steepest such drop since March 2009.

In the previous monthly survey, a balance of 42 per cent of retailers had reported a year-on-year rise in sales volumes.