UK retail sales unexpectedly rose in September by the most in five months, led by spending on electrical goods such as laptop computers.

Sales including fuel climbed 0.6 per cent from August, when they fell a revised 0.4 per cent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. It is the biggest gain since April and compares with the median forecast of 23 economists in a Bloomberg News survey for no change.

In the third quarter, sales fell 0.2 per cent compared with the previous three months.

The Bank of England, which expanded stimulus this month to aid the recovery, said yesterday that household spending has been "weak for some time" as tensions in global markets affect consumer confidence. Pressure on households may continue after gas and electricity costs helped to push inflation to 5.2 per cent in September, the highest in three years.

"Recently, retail sales have held up better than we thought they would," Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec Securities in London, said before the release. "But it's unlikely that we're going to get anything like a sharp rebound in consumption because of the uncertainties and downside risks facing the economy."

Sales at household-goods stores jumped 3.2 per cent in September from the previous month, partly led by back-to-school spending on items such as computers, and demand for new video games. Food sales were unchanged and clothes sales fell 0.7 per cent as warm weather curbed sales of winter ranges.

From a year earlier, overall sales were up 0.6 per cent in September. Excluding fuel, retail sales rose 0.7 per cent on the month and 0.4 per cent on the year.

Bloomberg