A senior economist at Legal and General says the UK economy is in danger of over-heating unless Mark Carney and the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee push up interest rates this year.

Successive indicators show that the UK is returning to steady growth with the retail sector and housing market doing particularly well.

But some analysts say this is a sign of a bubble similar to that which predated the 2008 financial collapse and the UK is experiencing the ‘wrong kind of growth’.

James Carrick at Legal and General says the rapid recovery has pushed down unemployment so quickly that there is little capacity left for organisations to grow.

But the Bank of England has hinted that rates will not need to rise until the middle of 2015.

“The Bank is overestimating slack in the labour market, while politicians are desperately trying to reengineer a pre-election boom,” said Mr Carrick.

“The government has become impatient with the recovery, and poured fuel on the fire with the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme.”