The UK’s dominant service sector, home to disparate sectors from pubs to management consultancies, experienced a slowdown in growth last month.

An index from Markit and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) dropped to 57.6 in March from 58.2 the previous month.

Anything above 50 denotes expansion, so growth remains robust, but the slowdown was quicker than analysts’ expectations. They thought it would come in at around 58.1 for the month.

Two other indexes for manufacturing and construction, published in the last few days, have also disappointed, but again have pointed to a trend of solid performance in both sectors.

"The drop in price pressures alongside the more moderate pace of growth takes pressure off the Bank of England to start tightening policy, which should in turn take some pressure off sterling," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.