What do businesses need to grow? 600+ UK business have their say. The Entrepreneur Network has released their United Growth report identifying the state of UK business, making key findings and recommendations.
Research background
- It’s no secret that Britain is marked by economic inequality between its regions, with large gulfs in metrics like productivity and investment;
- Moreover, economic growth as a whole has been paltry in recent years, and exacerbates policy problems across the board;
- Delivering a meaningful uplift to economic growth will be made far easier if businesses across the length and breadth of Britain are empowered to flourish;
- Understanding what holds businesses back will be core to creating the solutions to help them succeed;
- In order to do that, we undertook an extensive qualitative and quantitative survey of business owners from all twelve regions of the United Kingdom – asking about challenges they currently face, to expectations about the future, to their thoughts about different policies that could make their lives easier;
- In total, we canvassed the opinions of 610 business owners, drawn equally from across the UK – and this report sets out what they told us.
Key findings
- By a ratio of more than six to one, entrepreneurs agree that economic inequality between the regions of the UK is a problem;
- More business owners say agree than disagree that they’ve come close to closing in the previous six months, and nearly two in five are currently considering closing up;
- The tax burden is chosen as the single biggest obstacle holding back growth, followed by input costs, difficulties accessing finance and difficulties hiring staff;
- But, there are generally high hopes for the next year among the business community – with most expecting revenues to grow and staff counts to increase, and over half are actively targeting growth as opposed to keeping things stable;
- Underlying this optimism is a belief that key drivers of business success will get better in the coming twelve months – with business owners especially confident that consumer demand, skills availability and local infrastructure will all improve;
- When asked which region they would move their business to if they had to, Greater London stands out as the most popular choice among business owners;
- But, there is widespread rejection of the view that businesses can only fulfil their potential in London, and many more business owners believe their local area has a strong business community than do not.
Policy implications
- Solving these issues will require catch-up growth across the country, but a series of challenges prevent that growth from materialising;
- Learning from our survey about what challenges business owners face, and what solutions they’d support, we suggest following policy proposals:
- Ensure business taxes are competitive – by not raising the headline rate of Corporation Tax any further, and ensuring reform of Capital Gains Tax does not discourage entrepreneurial activity;
- Invest in infrastructure to keep Britain moving – by streamlining the planning process, allowing developers to capture more of the value uplift they create and exploring alternative financing methods to construction;
- Increase the supply of premises to give businesses more space to grow – by liberalising regulations that prevent development and reforming Business Rates to be fairer to businesses of different sizes and to incentivise more productive land use;
- Unleash the next phase of mayoral devolution – by granting ‘London-style’ powers to all metro mayors and examining what fiscal powers could be devolved from Whitehall;
- Make Britain open for business to more of the world – by restarting negotiations on a free trade agreement with the US and offering a Youth Mobility Scheme to the EU and US.
You can download the full report here.