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.