The jet energy scale (JES) and its systematic uncertainty are determined for jets measured with the ATLAS detector using proton–proton collision data with a centre-ofmass energy of √s = 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 f −1. Jets are reconstructed from energy deposits forming topological clusters of calorimeter cells using the anti-kt algorithm with distance parameters R = 0.4 or R = 0.6, and are calibrated using MC simulations. A residual JES correction is applied to account for differences between data and MC simulations. This correction and its systematic uncertainty are estimated using a combination of in situ techniques exploiting the transverse momentum balance between a jet and a reference object such as a photon or a Z boson, for 20 ≤ p jet T < 1000 GeV and pseudorapidities |η| < 4.5. The effect of multiple proton–proton interactions is corrected for, and an uncertainty is evaluated using in situ techniques. The smallest JES uncertainty of less than 1 % is found in the central calorimeter region (|η| < 1.2) for jets with 55 ≤ p jet T < 500 GeV. For central jets at lower pT, the uncertainty is about 3 %. A consistent JES estimate is found using measurements of the calorimeter response of single hadrons in proton–proton collisions and test-beam data, which also provide the estimate for p