While the prevailing narrative in the UK often focuses on ‘doom and gloom’, there are many reasons to be cheerful. Our economy is growing. April saw a 0.7% increase in GDP, following three consecutive months of growth.
London Tech Week boasted that UK AI startups and scaleups raised £8.2bn in venture capital this year – that’s nearly half of all European technology investment. We also rank third in the world by number of investment projects, and first for the most attractive destination for both inbound and domestic dealmaking. Despite this, we appear to be continually trapped in a pessimistic loop, which no doubt impacts consumer and investor confidence. When we feel confident and optimistic, we spend freely – if we are cautious and pessimistic, we hold onto our cash and become distracted from long-term ambitions. And there are plenty of growth opportunities available. But if we want to seize them and build greater momentum, we need a change of mindset, focused on replicating our successes.
Instinctively, we focus on ‘what needs fixing?’ when we could be asking: ‘what is working and how do we scale it?’ A great place to start is with the millions of privately owned, owner-led businesses across the UK. These leaders make up the economic engine of the country and continually buck the trend and thrive against the odds. If we were to focus more on how to replicate and scale their successes, we could ground our economic narrative in something practical and positive, giving investors the confidence to keep capital moving.
Selling potential and driving confidence
The reality is that things are not as bad as they often seem – or certainly as they are portrayed. The foundations of our business landscape are really strong and are a product of decades worth of consistent policy frameworks, world-class universities and talent pools, and strong public-private partnerships enhanced by devolution.
In the North, we’re seeing an explosion of growth opportunities in sectors like manufacturing, construction and advanced materials. The government has dedicated £1.7bn to boost city-centre housing and office projects as well as £31bn, with US companies, into developing regions like the North East as ‘AI Growth Zones’ as part of the Tech Prosperity Deal. While this is a huge vote of confidence in the UK’s track record and growing sectors and regions, there is still a lot of capital available that is not being deployed.
To release this untapped potential, we need to focus less on the negative headlines and more on the privately owned, owner-led businesses that are driving positive change from the heart of their communities. In the North alone, there are more than 400,000 owner-managed businesses employing 1.7 million people. They are contributing £114 billion to the UK economy and are growing significantly faster at an average rate of 8.5% per year. These scaling, owner-led businesses are consistently driving growth because they are future-focused, resilient and agile. They are aggressively optimistic and refuse to wait for central policy to align before enacting their plans – they just do it.
Asking the right questions to drive growth
Driving more practical and productive conversations starts with asking the right questions – ones that focus on what we have that’s working and what needs to be done to scale success. When problems and short-term problem solving are the only focus, the chances are that the solutions will be sticking plasters – risking opening up different challenges elsewhere. But when the focus is grounded in what is going well and what we are doing right, we are more likely to turn those lessons into long-term, transformative change.
Businesses know this. No company successfully secures investment by focusing on what they can’t do. They have a narrative about what they can – and will – do to create long-term success. Places are no different. The towns and cities of the North that have prospered from devolution and have received funding tend to do so because of their potential, building on the unique assets that make them a great place to live, work and invest. And they tell that story. Equipped with the right data and the right narrative, businesses, local authorities and national governments alike can identify what they do well and what is holding them back from achieving their full potential.
With this, we can begin to ask better, more informed questions like “can this successful approach be applied to different industries?”, or “what policy change would genuinely help to accelerate growth?”
The UK is still a fantastic place to start and scale a business. We have all the key ingredients for growth but need to be focusing more on what is working and using this to build the confidence that will unlock greater, sustainable momentum. By focusing on how we can replicate regional triumphs, what specific policy levers will accelerate success, and what our owner-led businesses need to scale, we build an economic roadmap powered by optimism rather than anxiety. Rewriting the UK’s growth narrative is not about ignoring our challenges, it is about changing the questions we use to solve them and shifting our focus towards stepping into the opportunities.
