Investors in London will examine vital British inflation, unemployment and retail sales data next week for clues on the strength of Britain's economic growth in the second quarter. London's FTSE 100 index rose 1.52 percent over the past week to finish at 5,765.80 points on Friday.
However Britain's recovery suffered a major blow on Friday as official data revealed a slump in the country's manufacturing output. Production slid 1.5 percent in April compared with activity in March, with output impacted by the royal wedding and Japan's tsunami disaster.
Output meanwhile rose by 1.3 percent in April on a 12-month comparison, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement.
"Feedback from companies has highlighted the extra bank holiday in April and the after-effects of the Japanese tsunami as factors influencing the reduction in output," the ONS added. British workers were given a day off on April 29 to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, while Japan's natural disaster meant vital parts could not be sent abroad to Britain, hitting production.
The ONS added on Friday that the wider measure of output, British industrial production, dived 1.7 percent from March and decreased by 1.2 percent year-on-year, according to the ONS.
The month-on-month drop was the biggest since August 2009, while analysts had forecast a fall of just 0.1 percent. Industrial production includes mining and quarrying, as well as electricity, gas, and water supply.
British inflation data for May will be published on Tuesday, ahead of unemployment figures on Wednesday and retail sales on Thursday.
The country's biggest retailer, supermarket giant Tesco, publishes a trading update on Tuesday.
This week, on Thursday, the Bank of England maintained its key lending rate at a record low 0.50 percent, opting against a hike as Britain's economic recovery buckles under the strains of weak growth and rising inflation.
The economy expanded 0.5 percent in the first three months of 2011 but this only made up for a contraction of 0.5 percent in the final quarter of 2010, when the economy was hit hard by severe winter weather.
Britain's annual inflation rate meanwhile soared to 4.5 percent in April, hitting a two-and-a-half-year high and stoking the prospect of an interest rate hike some time soon.