Resilience is one of those words that gets used a lot in business. But when you strip it back, it’s not complicated. It simply means being able to keep moving forward when things don’t go to plan.

And if the last few years have shown us anything, it’s that plans rarely stay fixed for long. Markets shift, technology moves quickly and economic uncertainty can appear with very little warning.

For leaders, especially those running small and medium-sized businesses, the challenge isn’t avoiding change. It’s helping your team deal with it.

In my experience, resilient businesses are almost always led by resilient people.

Over the past 25 years working in fire safety and security at Chubb, I’ve seen plenty of organisations face disruption. Some adapt quickly and come out stronger. Others struggle because uncertainty unsettles the team and slows decision-making.

More often than not, the difference comes down to leadership. Resilient leaders create an environment where people stay focused, tackle problems head-on and keep moving forward even when things feel uncertain.

Why leadership matters more than ever

There’s growing evidence that the quality of leadership has a direct impact on how well organisations cope with change.

The CIPD Good Work Index 2025 highlights how strongly supportive leadership and good line management influence employee engagement, motivation and wellbeing. The report shows that when people feel supported by their managers and trusted in their roles, they’re far more likely to stay motivated and perform well.

For SME leaders, that’s an important point.

Resilience isn’t something that only large organisations with big HR departments can build. In fact, smaller businesses often have an advantage because leaders are closer to their teams and communication tends to be more direct.

That visibility means leaders have a real opportunity to shape how people respond when challenges arise.

Resilience is something you build

One of the biggest misconceptions about resilience is that it’s something you either have or you don’t. In reality, resilience is something that can be developed.

Teams become more resilient when they’re trusted to solve problems, encouraged to learn from mistakes and given the confidence to take ownership of challenges. For leaders, creating that environment starts with the way we react when things go wrong.

It’s easy in business to look for someone to blame when a problem appears. But resilient organisations tend to take a different approach. Instead of focusing on who made the mistake, they focus on what can be learned and how the issue can be solved.

That shift in mindset builds confidence across the team. People feel safer speaking up, sharing ideas and taking responsibility.

Give people the space to step up

Another key part of building resilience is trust.

Strong leaders understand that people grow when they’re given the chance to think for themselves. When employees are empowered to make decisions and solve problems, they build confidence and adaptability. Over time, that confidence becomes one of the organisation’s biggest strengths.

Transparency also plays a big role here.

Periods of change can easily create uncertainty. And when leaders stay quiet, people often assume the worst. Being open about challenges helps teams understand the bigger picture and encourages everyone to pull together.

It doesn’t mean having all the answers. It simply means being honest about the situation and focusing on what can be done next.

Leadership shouldn’t sit with one person

Another lesson I’ve learned over the years is that resilience doesn’t sit with one individual. The strongest organisations develop leadership across the whole business.

Future leaders often appear in unexpected places, which is something I’ve discovered at Chubb through Building Great Leaders – a framework we’ve created to help our people develop their leadership competency, no matter what their role is. Someone who shows initiative, supports colleagues or steps up during a difficult project may well become a great leader with the right encouragement.

Businesses that invest time in developing people early tend to cope better when challenges arise. When people feel capable and trusted, they’re far more likely to step forward rather than step back. And that makes a huge difference when change inevitably comes along.

Culture sets the tone

In many ways, resilience spreads through culture. Teams take their cues from the behaviour of their leaders. If leaders remain calm, focus on solutions and encourage collaboration, those behaviours quickly become the norm.

But the opposite is also true. If leaders panic or avoid difficult conversations, that uncertainty spreads just as quickly.

That’s why leadership development matters so much. It’s not simply about preparing someone for a management role. It’s about helping people develop the mindset and skills needed to navigate uncertainty.

Helping teams face whatever comes next

Change is part of business. Technology evolves, customer expectations shift and markets rarely stay still. Leaders can’t remove that uncertainty. What we can do is shape how our teams respond to it.

The most resilient organisations are the ones where people feel confident tackling problems, supporting one another and adapting when circumstances change. And that starts with leadership.

Because in the end, resilient leadership isn’t about having every answer. It’s about giving your team the confidence to face whatever comes next.

Read more:
How resilient leaders help their teams thrive through change

There is a stage in entrepreneurship that many founders and senior leaders struggle to make sense of.

On paper, things are working, revenue is growing, the team is bigger, the business has momentum, and the organisation is beginning to mature beyond the intensity of the earliest build phase. From the outside, this should be the point where leadership starts to feel more stable. Instead, for many entrepreneurial leaders, it begins to feel cognitively harder than the stage that came before it.

In my work as a business psychologist and ADHD coach, I see this pattern repeatedly across entrepreneurs and senior decision makers. They come into the conversation convinced the issue is growth, complexity or leadership pressure. There are more people relying on them, more decisions to make, and less room for error. What they do not yet see is that entrepreneurship itself often exposes something more precise, the accidental structure that once kept their brain activated is no longer enough for the stage of business they are now leading.

This is where the conversation around ADHD and entrepreneurship needs to become more sophisticated. The same brain that makes someone exceptional at building can begin to create friction when the business starts demanding a different kind of leadership architecture. In the earliest stages of building something, the environment naturally provides activation. Every problem is immediate, cash flow creates urgency, new business creates novelty, and the emotional stakes are always high. For an ADHD brain, those conditions can produce extraordinary momentum because they align directly with how activation works.

This is why so many entrepreneurial leaders with ADHD thrive in the early stages of building a company. They are often exceptional at rapid pattern recognition, decisive action under uncertainty, opportunity spotting and moving before others are ready. What many people describe as entrepreneurial instinct is often a highly effective match between the ADHD nervous system and the conditions of early stage business.

The challenge emerges as entrepreneurship evolves from building into leading. The work shifts away from immediate visible problems and towards longer horizon thinking, systems design, delegation, financial planning, hiring and strategic decisions that may not come with natural urgency attached. The founder is no longer being pulled forward by external pressure. They are now responsible for creating clarity and momentum for an organisation that depends on them.

For many business leaders with ADHD, this is the point where performance starts to feel disproportionately expensive. The issue is rarely capability, they still know exactly where the business needs to go. The friction sits in activation, the ADHD brain does not reliably move on importance alone. It activates through interest, novelty, challenge, urgency and emotional salience. When the work required for the next stage of growth becomes abstract and self-directed, even highly capable leaders can find themselves trapped in reactive work while the decisions that would genuinely move the business forward remain untouched.

This is why so many founders can spend an entire day working while avoiding the single decision that matters most. They answer emails, resolve team issues and stay deeply busy, yet the hiring decision, pricing redesign, systems overhaul or market repositioning that would materially change the business remains delayed. From the outside, this can look like founder chaos or poor delegation, but more often, it is a missing leadership architecture.

In the early phase, survival itself generated activation. A payroll deadline, client pitch or cash flow issue created enough neurological urgency to make action inevitable. In a more established entrepreneurial environment, the most valuable work is often strategic rather than urgent. That means the leader now has to design those activation conditions deliberately rather than borrowing them from the business itself.

This is where many entrepreneurial leaders misdiagnose the problem and assume they need better tools. They invest in planning platforms, redesign their calendar, bring in operational support or install project management software. These tools can all be useful, but they often fail because they assume the leader can already determine what matters most, decide when to begin, define what good enough looks like and sustain focus until the work is complete. For many leaders with ADHD, that is the exact pressure point entrepreneurship eventually exposes.

This is a pattern I work on directly with founders, directors and entrepreneurial decision makers through my business psychology and ADHD coaching work. The focus is not on forcing generic productivity systems onto a brain that has already shown it works differently. The real work is designing leadership architecture around how the brain actually activates. That means decision rules that reduce cognitive drag, accountability systems that make strategic work real before pressure arrives, leadership rhythms that support consistent performance, and operational design that stops the business from depending on adrenaline as its primary fuel source.

This matters because businesses often begin to mirror the nervous system of the person leading them. If momentum only appears when urgency spikes, the team learns to wait for urgency too. If priorities live in instinct rather than systems, the company scales ambiguity. What first appears to be a personal leadership issue is often already becoming an organisational design issue.

For business leaders, this is why the conversation around ADHD has to move beyond the usual extremes. The question is not whether ADHD is an advantage or a drawback in entrepreneurship. The more useful question is whether the business has now outgrown the accidental systems that once helped the leader perform at their best.

The strengths that built the company remain enormously valuable. Pattern recognition, speed of synthesis, tolerance for complexity, fast reads on markets and people, and the ability to connect opportunities others miss are often extraordinary entrepreneurial assets. What changes is the level of architecture required around those strengths. As the business grows, instinct alone stops being enough.

For many founders and senior decision makers, this is the hidden growth lever nobody is talking about. The business has simply reached the stage where instinct must be translated into architecture. Once that happens deliberately, the same brain that built the business through speed, intensity and insight becomes fully capable of leading it through sustainable, strategic growth.

Roxana Tascu is a business psychologist and ADHD coach who works with founders, directors and senior business leaders to design leadership architecture that supports strategic growth, better decision making and sustainable high performance. Discover more at www.adhd-advantage.com, or connect with Roxana on Instagram @RoxanaTascu

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Why ADHD and entrepreneurship can drive success and create challenges in equal measure

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Neurodiverse workers could hold a distinct advantage as artificial intelligence reshapes the modern workplace, according to a UK technology entrepreneur who says businesses are overlooking a critical talent pool at a pivotal moment of change.

Josh Hough, founder of home care software firm CareLineLive, has argued that traits commonly associated with neurodiversity, including heightened focus, pattern recognition and unconventional problem-solving, are becoming increasingly valuable as organisations accelerate their adoption of AI-driven systems and workflows.

Speaking during Neurodiversity Celebration Week, Hough said many employers remain too focused on traditional hiring frameworks, despite the growing need for adaptability and innovative thinking.

“A lot of businesses still want people who tick every box,” he said. “The reality is, people who think differently often solve problems differently.

“In a world where everything is changing quickly, that’s a real advantage. You need people who don’t just follow a process, but can see a better way of doing things.”

His comments come as businesses across the UK and globally invest heavily in artificial intelligence to drive productivity, automate processes and unlock new growth opportunities. However, this shift is also redefining the types of skills and mindsets organisations require, placing a premium on cognitive diversity rather than uniformity.

Hough’s own approach to leadership and hiring has been shaped by personal experience. Born with a rare muscle-weakening condition that left him reliant on a wheelchair for much of his early life, he developed a mindset centred on adaptability and alternative problem-solving from a young age.

“When you grow up having to do things differently you don’t assume the standard way is the best way,” he said. “That carries through into business.”

Founded in 2014, CareLineLive has grown into a significant player in the digital care technology space, supporting more than 700 home care providers across multiple countries and used by over 25,000 carers. Its platform is designed to streamline operations across the care sector, from staff management and patient records to real-time communication between care providers, families and healthcare professionals.

At a time when the care sector is under sustained pressure from staffing shortages, rising demand and regulatory complexity, Hough believes technology, combined with diverse thinking, is essential to improving efficiency and outcomes.

“One of the biggest challenges in care is how information flows between people and services,” he said. “Too often, information doesn’t move between people in the way it should. That creates risk and wastes time.

“Our focus has always been on making sure the right people have the right information at the right time.”

Beyond operational efficiency, Hough’s comments highlight a broader shift in how businesses should think about talent in the AI era. As automation takes over routine and process-driven tasks, the ability to think laterally, identify patterns and approach problems from new angles is becoming more strategically important.

This has significant implications for recruitment, workplace culture and long-term competitiveness. Companies that continue to prioritise rigid skill checklists and conventional career paths risk missing out on individuals who may be better suited to navigating complexity and change.

Hough said the conversation around neurodiversity must evolve beyond compliance or risk management and instead focus on value creation.

“Not everyone is going to fit a traditional mould,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t be excellent at what they do.

“If anything, in the current environment, thinking differently is exactly what businesses need.”

As AI adoption accelerates and the nature of work continues to shift, his message is clear: the future workforce will not just be defined by technical capability, but by diversity of thought, and those who recognise this early may gain a decisive edge.

Read more:
Neurodiverse talent could be key advantage in AI economy, says UK tech founder

We are heading towards a time where five generations share the workplace. From Baby Boomers to Gen Z, employees bring very different experiences, values and expectations.

For leaders, this is not a problem to solve. It is an opportunity to harness a range of perspectives in service of better outcomes for the business.

Yet the conversation around generational difference often starts in the wrong place. Narratives that younger generations do not want to work, that they lack resilience, or that they do not understand what it takes to succeed are deeply unhelpful. Leaning into these stories shuts down curiosity and listening. It reduces a complex human dynamic to a binary argument about who is right and who is wrong, and it feeds a wider societal tendency to focus on what separates us rather than what unites us.

Across all generations, the fundamentals are the same. Regardless of age, people need to feel seen, valued and heard and those needs do not change. What differs is how confidently people express them.

Gen X, for example, were often conditioned to feel grateful simply to have a job, and many were not encouraged to articulate what they needed from work. Younger generations, however, are far more comfortable voicing their wants and expectations, and what is sometimes labelled as entitlement is, in reality, valuable insight. There may even be an element of subconscious jealousy at play, as younger people are standing up for themselves in ways many of us did not feel able to. This is not laziness, but a different and often valuable perspective.

Younger employees want to achieve and they want to be successful. What they do not necessarily want is to replicate the exact path previous generations took to get there. When you look at the levels of burnout, stress and toxicity that have existed within many traditional working models, it is extraordinary that we would not pause and ask how might we do this differently?

From inputs to outputs

Too many generational debates become fixated on inputs, whether people are in the office, how many hours they are working or what sacrifices are being made. Inputs are highly visible, which makes them easy to focus on. However, they are not the true measure of performance. What ultimately matters are the outputs.

What does good look like for this business? What are we here to achieve? What impact are we trying to make? And most importantly why are we doing this? When leaders create clarity around outputs and what those outputs are in service of, they can then allow for flexibility in how those outcomes are delivered.

If leaders focus solely on systems, organisational design, operating models and processes, they risk overlooking the most critical factor in performance, which is their people.

While most leaders recognise that adaptability is essential in today’s environment and have evolved structures, technologies and strategies at pace, the real question is whether that same adaptability is being applied to how we engage, develop and support people.

Providing clarity about both the what and the why ensures that people, are set up to work autonomously. Autonomy enables individuals to feel a sense of personal agency, and that is something everyone needs, regardless of which generation they are.

Without this alignment and autonomy, even the most well-designed transformation efforts are unlikely to deliver their full potential.

Conflict as information not threat

Generational differences can sometimes surface as tension. What we often label as conflict at work is rarely true conflict. More often, it is a difference of opinion that has not been expressed clearly or resolved early. Lack of clarity creates the conditions for disagreement to escalate. The goal is not to avoid disagreements but to bring them to the surface and explore them. Conflict will exist because people care, they are passionate, and they see things differently. The question is whether it becomes healthy or unhealthy.

A difference of opinion is not a threat. Becoming more comfortable with the idea that multiple perspectives can coexist is often the key to avoiding full-blown conflict. Leaders play a vital role in shaping the conditions for healthy challenge. They create environments grounded in exploration and understanding and support open, constructive dialogue that strengthens teams and decision-making.

When handled constructively, conflict, especially that arising from generational differences, becomes an opportunity to improve collaboration, build understanding, and harness diverse perspectives to achieve better outcomes.

Enduring strength across generations

Generational collaboration cannot be one sided. There are enduring strengths within older generations, perspective, experience, clarity of standards and resilience developed through navigating challenge without constant scaffolding.

At the same time some younger employees may not yet have had the opportunity to build those muscles. Many have been highly supported and protected. That does not make them weak. It simply means certain skills need developing and that development requires guidance not judgement.

Equally, younger generations bring fresh thinking, technological fluency and a willingness to question assumptions. They have a right to help define culture and quality of work going forward. But that right comes with a responsibility to engage with the experience around them and to be open to learning from it.

When generations are placed together in positive contexts the exchange is powerful. You can see it in everyday life. Younger people who spend time listening to older generations’ stories often describe it as life enhancing. Perspective expands and the  same is true in organisations.

There is always value in the difference, neither generation is wholly right or wrong. The leader’s role is to find ways to use these differences proactively and work with the energy in the room rather than against it.

Leading from unity not division

The most powerful conversations in organisations are grounded in shared purpose. By focusing on what we as a business need to achieve and how we can work together to reach it, we can make the most of one another’s strengths and uncover issues that might otherwise go unnoticed.

That shift from assumption to inquiry changes everything. Leaders set the tone. They need to be available, approachable and grounded in positive intent. Supporting younger talent while maintaining clear expectations helps create cultures where clarity around what good looks like sits comfortably alongside adaptability in how it is delivered.

When we focus on what unites us rather than what divides us, generational diversity becomes an asset rather than a tension point. Harnessing these differences is not about smoothing everything into sameness. It is about recognising that diverse outlooks strengthen decision making, fuel innovation and deepen resilience.

By moving beyond unhelpful narratives, staying curious and prioritising outputs over inputs, clarity over assumption and unity over division, organisations can truly unlock all potential.

By Claire Croft, founder of executive coaching business Claire Croft Associates

For more information, visit: https://clairecroft.co.uk

Read more:
How generational differences can fuel growth

When the Government’s entrepreneurship adviser, Alex Depledge, declared that Britain does not “need any more restaurants”, I’ll confess my first reaction was disbelief. My second was to reach for the data. And my third, after reading it, was a conclusion both simple and troubling: she has misidentified where entrepreneurship in this country actually lives and in doing so, is making it harder for it to survive.

Let me start with the basics. Hospitality employs 2.6 million people in the UK, 7.1% of the entire workforce. It generates £69.5 billion in gross value added. It contributes £54 billion in gross tax receipts annually. It is, by any reasonable measure, not a peripheral cottage industry but a cornerstone of the British economy. But here is the figure that should stop the Government’s entrepreneurship adviser in her tracks, one drawn from the House of Commons Library research briefing on hospitality, published in January 2026, which she may not yet have had the opportunity to read: 99.6% of hospitality businesses are SMEs, and 97.7% are small businesses. An adviser appointed to clear the path for more small enterprises might reasonably be expected to know that one of the most entrepreneurially dense sectors in the entire UK economy is the one she has just publicly dismissed.

But the argument I want to make goes beyond the statistics, important as they are. It goes to something more fundamental, something that Depledge, for all her intelligence and commercial experience, appears to have overlooked entirely.

Every business deal that gets done in this country, every investment secured, every partnership formed, every client relationship built, happens somewhere and through human contact. It happens over a coffee, over lunch, over dinner, at a networking event, at a conference, at a drinks reception. The hospitality sector is not separate from the high-growth economy that the Government’s adviser wants to build. It is the connective tissue of it. You cannot scale a clean tech company, close a venture capital round, or sign a manufacturing partnership without, at some point, sitting across a table from someone in a room that a hospitality business has made possible.

I want to give a concrete example of what smart support for hospitality entrepreneurship actually looks like, because it is already happening, just not by government. On our own university campus, we work with Aramark to provide catering for students, staff and events. Given the natural variation in demand across term time, Aramark does something rather clever: it brings in small, independent food truck operators on a rotating basis, giving them seven or eight hours a day of guaranteed footfall, exposure to a large and diverse customer base, and the kind of commercial experience that no business incubator programme can replicate. The result is a richer, more varied food offering for our community, and a genuine launchpad for small hospitality enterprises.

Pubs are doing the same. The Compton Arms in Islington, ranked in the UK’s Top 50 Gastropubs, has built its reputation on offering kitchen residencies to emerging independent food businesses, giving them a platform, a customer base, and the commercial experience to grow. It is not a charity model; it is a smart one. The chefs behind Four Legs did their residency at the Compton Arms and went on to open The Plimsoll. Walk into any good pub offering food, and you will find a similar story, Thai kitchens operating out of the back, independent suppliers stocking the bar, local producers on the menu. These are ecosystems of entrepreneurship that the Government’s own adviser appears not to have noticed.

Aramark and the Compton Arms have understood something that the Government has not: supporting small hospitality businesses is not charity. It is smart commercial strategy.

I would gently invite the Government’s entrepreneurship adviser to conduct a simple experiment. Consider a single working day. The morning coffee picked up on the way to the office supplied by an independent café, almost certainly an SME. The biscuits and drinks laid on for the first meeting of the day. Lunch, whether grabbed at a local restaurant or catered in. Networking event with colleagues or clients. A family dinner that evening. Count how many of those touchpoints involve a hospitality business. Count how many of the people who made those moments possible are employed in a sector she has suggested we do not need more of.

The Government says it wants to champion the industries of tomorrow. So do we. There is no disagreement about the importance of clean technology, advanced manufacturing, or the creative sector. But the framing of hospitality as somehow standing in the way of that ambition is a false choice and a damaging one. An economy that neglects its sixth largest employment sector, that has already seen restaurants shed 22% of their casual dining sites since 2020, and that continues to pile on costs through National Insurance increases and business rates reform, is not building for the future. It is hollowing out the present.

Britain’s hospitality sector does not need to be told it isn’t wanted. It needs a government and an entrepreneurship adviser that understands what it is and what it does well enough to support it properly.

Read more:
The Government’s entrepreneurship adviser says we don’t need more restaurants. She’s wrong and here’s why

The government has announced a £4bn investment package aimed at transforming support for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), but sector experts have cautioned that the funding risks being swallowed by mounting backlogs and growing demand.

The package includes a £1.6bn Inclusive Mainstream Fund over three years, which will go directly to early years settings, schools and colleges to strengthen in-class support. A further £1.8bn will fund a new “Experts at Hand” service designed to create a local bank of specialists, including SEND teachers and speech and language therapists in every area.

Keir Starmer said the reforms would help families secure tailored support without having to “fight the system”.

“That means no more ‘one size fits all’ approach,” he said, promising provision built around individual needs and delivered locally.

However, some professionals and parents have questioned whether the scale of the funding will be sufficient to address systemic issues.

Gosia Dawson, director at Glade Financial and a parent of an autistic child, said the recognition of failings in the SEND system was welcome but warned that structural problems remain.

“£4bn sounds substantial, but spread nationally over three years, it risks being absorbed by backlogs and rising demand,” she said. “Funding alone won’t fix challenges around assessments, thresholds and accountability.”

She added that many children with moderate but genuine needs often struggle to access timely support. “Too often, help only comes once a child reaches crisis point. Early intervention is not a cost. it’s an investment.”

Riz Malik, director at R3 Wealth and a former chair of trustees at a multi-academy trust, described the announcement as a positive step but said it should mark the beginning of longer-term reform.

“Meaningful investment has been needed for years,” he said. “If this delivers earlier support and more specialist resources, it can improve outcomes, but it should only be the start.”

The SEND system has faced sustained criticism in recent years over long assessment delays, rising Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) demand and budget pressures on local authorities.

While the government says the new funding will strengthen local capacity and reduce the need for families to escalate disputes, observers warn that without parallel reform to assessment processes and accountability structures, additional funds may struggle to keep pace with demand.

For many families, the success of the programme will be measured not by headline figures, but by whether it reduces waiting times, improves early intervention and ensures children receive the right support before reaching breaking point.

Read more:
£4bn SEND funding welcomed as experts warn of backlog pressures

Let’s get something straight right at the outset: The idea of banning working from home is not merely daft, not a bit ill-advised, but a spectacular, full-on intellectual car crash wearing a stupid hat.

And the fact that this notion is being flirted with seriously in political circles tells you everything you need to know about how out of touch this country’s Westminster bubble has become.

If you’ve been reading my scribblings on this subject for the last decade, such as Why forcing a return to the office is a step backwards for business and Bodies, bums, cost money, can you go virtual, then you’ll know I’ve not exactly been shy about waving the flag for flexibility. I’ve argued that work isn’t a location; it’s a thing you do. Deadlines don’t care about Tube strikes. Creativity doesn’t flourish because you’ve got a corner desk with a view of Canary Wharf. Pencils don’t write better in the City.

And yet here we are, in 2026, watching the same fossils who championed touchdown desks as if they were a breakthrough in human civilisation roll out the same old chestnuts about presenteeism, ‘office culture’, and “We have to see people at their desks!” — as if productivity is directly proportional to proximity to a swivel chair.

What makes this iteration of absurdity particularly galling is the political context. The current political mood music suggests that Nigel Farage could well be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Now, I am not here to start a partisan fracas, but I am here to call out nonsense wherever it crops up, regardless of which side of the aisle it’s draped in. And when someone positioned to lead the country describes working from home as something to ban, you have to wonder whether they’ve ever, you know, worked.

If your understanding of remote working is limited to the fleeting glimpse you get when the BBC cuts to a home office with a bobble-head on a shelf, then yes, you might think working from home is an indulgence. A luxury. A mild form of leisure. But as anyone who has actually managed teams through screens, as I wrote in Managing your team through a small screen, will tell you, there’s nothing remotely relaxed about aligning global calendars, coaching through glitches, wiring up video calls while your dog thinks he’s invited, and delivering outcomes that matter.

One of the clearest articulations I’ve read on this came from Mark Dixon, founder of Regus, yes, the flexible workspace titan with a vested interest in desks existing everywhere, and yet unambiguously clear that banning remote working is idiotic. His comments, in an interview with The Times, pierced the usual fog of clichés: flexibility is not the enemy of collaboration; it is its enabler. People don’t want to be forced back into a dungeon of desks five days a week; they want meaningful connection on their terms. If that means meeting in person for ideation and spending the rest of the week where they can function best, then great. If it means satellite offices closer to where people live, brilliant. But banning WFH altogether? Only someone with a pathological affection for sepia-tinted office fantasies could back that.

Let’s unpack why this matters beyond the tedium of managerial turf wars, and to put my bona fides out there on this topic Capital Business Media – owners of Business Matters – has doubled turnover  in three years with not a single staff member being in the same ‘office’ as their colleagues.

First: productivity. The best evidence we have, from countless businesses large and small, is that output does not collapse when people work from home. The idea that remote work is synonymous with loafing is a myth lazy commentators cling to because it’s a convenient continuation of their own nostalgia for commutes on Tube trains smelling faintly of regret.

Second: talent. The modern workforce is not static; it does not orbit offices like electrons around a corporate nucleus. People prioritise flexibility, and talent migrates to where they find it. Companies that cling to “You must be here 9–5, no exceptions” do not become magnets for the best people; they become boarding houses for the most compliant. If banning WFH becomes legislation, businesses will reward political interference with a choice: move work abroad, automate it, or collapse under its own inertia.

Third: the economy. There’s a pernicious assumption among some policymakers that an office full of bodies equals economic vitality. But let’s be honest, the office economy is a facade propped up by overpriced coffee, sandwich chains with dubious pension plans, and pastry carts wheeled out of a desire to feel busier than we are. Real economic value is created by effective, sustainable work, whether it’s done in a studio in Sussex, a flat in Glasgow, or an airport lounge in Zurich during a layover.

Far from being a quaint perk, remote working is an economic force multiplier. It reduces carbon emissions from commuting, diminishes pressure on housing markets in overheated urban centres, and spreads spending power geographically. It’s not a threat to society; it’s an evolution of it.

So let’s be clear: banning WFH isn’t just about where people sit. It’s about control. It’s about a cultural insistence on seeing busyness as virtue rather than effectiveness. It’s about politicians pining for a world they half-remember through the filmy lens of “office culture” brochures from the early 2000s.

My suggestion? If anyone seriously proposes a ban on working from home, we should ask them this: “Have you ever delivered an entire quarterly business review over Zoom? Have you ever coordinated a multinational project without once stepping foot in an office? Have you ever actually assessed work by outcomes rather than appearances?”

Until they can answer yes, I’d be wary of taking their advice on the future of work seriously.

Because whatever happens next in Westminster, let’s not consign the world of work to a bunker called an office. That’s not progress. That’s nostalgia dressed up as policy. And in an era when adaptability is a competitive advantage, banning working from home isn’t just backward-looking, it’s lunacy.

Read more:
Banning WFH is lunacy, and the politicians out of touch enough to mandate it are too

Mark Dixon, the billionaire founder of IWG and architect of the Regus empire, has dismissed calls to ban working from home as “idiotic”, arguing that the future of productivity lies in better management, not compulsory office attendance.

Speaking to The Times, Dixon responded to remarks by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who recently declared that people are not more productive at home and pledged to scrap the practice if his party ever came to power. For Dixon, such thinking belongs to another era. “The idea that the only place you can work is in an office is idiotic,” he said. Advocates of five days a week in the office, he added, are “naive” and “Luddites”.

As chief executive and largest shareholder of IWG, the £2.2bn group behind the Regus and Spaces brands, Dixon is hardly neutral. The company promotes hybrid working as a core proposition and operates more than 4,400 locations across 122 countries. Yet his view is informed by scale and data as much as ideology. “Work can be done absolutely anywhere today,” he said. “The whole notion of offices has completely changed.”

The interview took place at Spaces Liverpool Street in the City, a recently refurbished location where corporate suits and start-up hoodies share communal tables. Dixon, 66, is softly spoken rather than bombastic, but unequivocal in his beliefs. “The key problem with work and productivity is how you manage people,” he said. “It’s not whether they’re at home or in an office.”

His approach is to manage outputs rather than presence. For his roughly 1,000 head-office staff, part of a global workforce of around 9,000, the emphasis is on delivery rather than surveillance. As for the oft-cited “water cooler moments” supposedly lost in remote working, Dixon believes they must be deliberately curated rather than left to chance. “You’ve got to schedule creative periods,” he said. “You can’t just rely on random encounters.”

Dixon’s own career has been anything but conventional. Born in Essex to a car mechanic, he began his entrepreneurial life selling topsoil to neighbours at the age of 12. After leaving school at 16 and travelling the world, he launched a sandwich delivery business in the 1980s before selling his bakery venture for £800,000. That capital financed his move to Brussels in 1989, where he spotted businesspeople conducting meetings in cafés, and identified a market for flexible office space. The first Regus centre opened later that year.

Expansion followed rapidly through Latin America, China and the United States. Regus listed in London in 2000 but narrowly avoided collapse during the dotcom crash. More recently, IWG has outlasted high-profile rival WeWork, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2023 after a spectacular fall from a $47bn valuation.

Despite persistent speculation about shifting its listing to the US, Dixon said such a move is not imminent. While about half of IWG’s business is American, he cautioned that scale is essential before any transatlantic switch. “It’s important to be big there; you don’t want to be a minnow,” he said, suggesting annual earnings would need to exceed £1bn before the company could justify the effort.

On UK politics, Dixon was less restrained. He questioned whether successive governments have truly prioritised business competitiveness, arguing that long-term economic success depends on fostering strong companies and industries.

Now based in Monaco, Dixon retains a 27 per cent stake in IWG. Asked about succession, he acknowledged the inevitability of change. “The challenge for any chief executive-founder is succession,” he said. “This is a young man’s business.” He insisted he has no ego-driven attachment to the role, only to the company’s success.

For the time being, however, he remains focused on growth, and on demonstrating that hybrid working can deliver results. The day before our conversation, he had taken his team to a nearby pub after a long meeting. “We got quite a lot done in two pints,” he said with a smile. “It was very productive.”

Read more:
Mark Dixon: ‘Banning working from home is idiotic’

The UK government must overhaul its approach to public sector procurement if it is serious about backing British innovation, according to Justin Megawarne, managing partner at Megaslice, who has accused Whitehall of hiding behind rigid frameworks and “arbitrary scoring systems”.

Megawarne’s comments follow the decision to award Fujitsu a place on a government framework worth up to £984 million, despite the company’s central role in developing and supporting the Post Office Horizon IT system. The system led to the wrongful prosecution of 736 subpostmasters across the UK and has since become one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in modern British history.

Fujitsu had previously written to the government committing not to bid for new public contracts until the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal had concluded. Its inclusion on the framework has reignited debate about how the government selects suppliers — and whether it is doing enough to support genuine domestic innovation.

“If an organisation has performed so badly for its customers that it has become a national scandal and warranted its own TV drama, surely it’s time the government spent its money elsewhere,” Megawarne said.

“With so much public money wasted on technology that isn’t fit for purpose, and in this case fraudulently criminalised people, the budget for real innovation continues to shrink. We are failing to support the next generation of founders who are building genuinely innovative businesses, instead recycling contracts to the same organisations that have failed us before.”

Megawarne argues that government procurement processes are fundamentally flawed, relying too heavily on mechanistic evaluation tools that struggle to identify real value.

“Current approaches to adopting new technology are overcomplicated and painfully slow,” he said. “Scoring sheets don’t capture innovation. If the government actually engaged with businesses instead of keeping them at arm’s length, we could save millions of pounds currently wasted on the wrong solutions.”

Rather than relying on civil servants to assess complex and novel technologies, Megawarne believes the government should enlist independent industry leaders with proven innovation credentials.

“Let experts judge ideas using their experience and judgement, not a spreadsheet,” he said. “Yes, some will say that sounds unfair, but it dramatically increases the chances of finding a genuinely game-changing solution. You simply need to ensure those experts have no conflicts of interest.”

He added that procurement decisions are too often driven by price rather than outcomes. “Spending less on the wrong solution isn’t saving money at all. Much of what’s been invested in so far has failed to solve the day-to-day problems government departments actually face.”

Megawarne also criticised what he sees as the government’s default preference for large, established suppliers, regardless of past performance.

“The mindset is still, ‘no one ever got fired for buying IBM’,” he said. “It’s a way of avoiding responsibility. If something goes wrong, you can always point at the big name.”

In the case of Fujitsu and the Post Office Horizon system, he said the failure was neither minor nor isolated. “This wasn’t a simple error. It destroyed lives. The company apologised only when it was forced to, and repeatedly resisted compensation. Yet here we are again, awarding more public contracts.”

According to Megawarne, the same pattern plays out repeatedly across government IT spending. “Huge consultancies win major contracts, fail spectacularly, and face no real consequences. It’s a cycle of failure with zero accountability.”

At the heart of the problem, Megawarne believes, is an institutional aversion to risk.

“True innovation exists in the UK, and much of it sits with founders who are building solutions that could genuinely transform public services,” he said. “But the government is fundamentally risk-averse.”

He warned that founders are being steered down the wrong path, optimising for procurement scorecards rather than solving real problems. “They chase perfect scores on frameworks that measure the wrong things, while innovation is sidelined in favour of cost-cutting and box-ticking.”

“If the government genuinely wants to unlock British innovation,” Megawarne added, “it needs to stop prioritising spreadsheets over people, and start backing ideas that actually work.”

Read more:
UK government must end its boycott of British innovation, says Megaslice

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) are often seen as “big company” issues – tied to boardroom pledges, large HR teams or investor reporting. But the reality is quite different. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), building a more inclusive culture is not just possible; it’s essential for sustainable growth.

At Chubb Fire & Security UK&I, diversity, equity and inclusion are embedded into the way we work. One of our core values is to “Win with integrity, together” – and that means creating a workplace where every individual feels respected, included and able to thrive. We don’t see DE&I as an initiative. We see it as a leadership standard.

And while large organisations may have dedicated resources for this work, smaller businesses have a unique advantage: they can make change happen faster, with closer teams and more direct influence from leadership.

Why DE&I Belongs in Every Business Strategy

In the UK, the legal case for inclusive workplaces is clear. Under the Equality Act 2010, businesses must ensure that people are not discriminated against based on protected characteristics, including race, gender, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and more.

But DE&I is not just a legal requirement. It’s a competitive advantage.

Research shows that diverse teams are better at problem-solving, more innovative and more adaptable in times of change. Inclusive cultures encourage trust and psychological safety – two factors that directly support retention, productivity and performance.

At Chubb, we recognise that diversity, equity and inclusion are strong drivers of growth and innovation. We’ve seen how teams thrive when people feel safe to be themselves, share their perspectives and contribute without fear of judgement. It’s not about meeting quotas; it’s about unlocking potential.

Chubb’s Commitment: Creating a Culture Where Everyone Belongs

We take pride in marking cultural and awareness moments that matter to our people – from Pride and Eid to Baby Loss Awareness Week and National Inclusion Week. These moments help us build empathy, strengthen relationships and create space for conversation.

We also take care to reflect DE&I in how we lead. As our Chief Operations Officer, David Dunnagan, puts it:

“DE&I goes much further than just employing diverse people; it’s about creating an inclusive and equitable environment in which every employee feels valued and respected.”

That environment is shaped not only by formal policies, but by the everyday behaviours of leaders and colleagues. From how we run meetings to how we hire, promote and communicate, we aim to model fairness, transparency and respect.

We know that when people feel safe and seen, they perform better. They grow faster. And they stay longer.

A Practical Roadmap for SME Leaders

You don’t need a dedicated DE&I officer to make meaningful progress. Here are five actions any SME can take – starting today:

1. Start with Listening and Learning

Hold informal conversations, run anonymous surveys or simply ask your team: “What does inclusion mean to you?” You don’t need to have all the answers. Showing a willingness to listen and learn is the first step to building trust.

2. Build Inclusion into Everyday Culture

Create inclusive meeting habits to make sure everyone is heard. Avoid scheduling around cultural holidays to encourage diverse perspectives. Inclusive cultures aren’t created by policy – they’re created by people, every day.

3. Check Your Processes for Fairness

Look at how you hire, promote and recognise talent. Are your job ads inclusive? Are opportunities visible and accessible to all? Small changes, like removing biased language from a job post, can have a big impact.

4. Celebrate What Makes People Different

Recognise cultural celebrations, awareness days and life events. Invite your team to share stories or lead activities. These moments foster connection, compassion and belonging.

5. Lead by Example

Inclusion starts at the top. Leaders must model openness, fairness and humility. At Chubb, we empower our people to be their true selves – and expect leaders to create the conditions that make that possible.

Inclusion Supports Growth and Keeps People

An inclusive culture doesn’t just attract talent – it keeps it. People stay where they feel valued. They speak up where they feel heard. And they do their best work where they feel safe.

In fast-moving businesses, especially SMEs, that stability matters. It means fewer recruitment costs, stronger collaboration and more continuity for customers and clients.

As our People Playbook puts it: “We celebrate the fact that our diversity makes us strong – and, simply, it’s the right thing to do.”

The Bottom Line

Diversity, equity and inclusion aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re must-haves for any business that wants to grow with integrity.

For SMEs, the opportunity is clear. You’re already close to your teams. You know your people. You move quickly. That means you can act – now – to create a more inclusive workplace where everyone feels they belong.

At Chubb, we’ve seen how inclusion strengthens our teams, our culture and our performance. We’ve still got work to do – but we’re proud of the journey we’re on.

Because when people feel safe to be themselves, they go further. And when they go further, so does your business.

Read more:
How SMEs can build diversity, equity and inclusion into their growth plans

I’ve been fortunate enough to walk the cavernous halls of a fair few of the world’s biggest trade shows in Las Vegas, they promised, and delivered, staggering innovation and energy.

Days of relentless discovery: robots pouring cappuccinos, AI so intuitive it seemed clairvoyant, and founders who spoke about change not as a cliché but as a lived reality. These were not just exhibitions; they were global marketplaces for ideas, capital and partnerships.

Yet back home, while Britain idles in Westminster’s fog of distracted policymaking, our competitors across Europe are not just showing up, they’re outshining us.

This year, Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association, the people behind CES, the annual technology conference held this week annually in Vegas, publicly criticised the UK government for lacking meaningful support for British businesses at the world’s most influential tech stage. His indictment is stark: the UK’s presence at the event is “spotty” and underwhelming compared with countries such as France and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, those nations send senior ministers, in some cases even royalty, and generously fund coordinated national pavilions for their firms.

Before we mince words about patriotism and global ambition, let’s be clear: this isn’t some petty squabble over flags and PR stunts. Trade shows like CES are strategic platforms where deals are forged, investment flows are unlocked, and international credibility is forged. It is precisely where the future gets bought, sold and broadcast.

And yet, Britain, despite having one of the world’s most dynamic tech sectors, is looking increasingly like an afterthought.

Consider the facts: French exhibitors now outnumber British ones; Germany and the Netherlands field strong contingents; even some smaller European states pack more visible, government-backed stands. The UK’s Tradeshow Access Programme, once a modest but valuable grant scheme for SMEs, was scrapped in 2021 and, despite repeated pleas from industry, has not been restored.

I have witnessed first-hand the pride and purpose with which other nations approach these events. The French pavilion, sleek, well funded and staffed with government representatives, felt like a declaration of strategic intent. British exhibitors, by contrast, often seemed to be fending for themselves, clutching their pitch decks and hoping for serendipity rather than being buoyed by a coordinated national effort.

There’s something faintly absurd about this situation. Post-Brexit, our leaders have consistently proclaimed a desire to “go global”, to boost exports, attract investment, and elevate the UK’s role on the world stage. Yet when the most visible arena for that ambition rolls into Las Vegas, one where 100,000 visitors convene and thousands of international companies exhibit emerging technologies, we treat it as an optional extra rather than a priority.

True, the government points to its Industrial Strategy and Small Business Plan as evidence of support for scaling firms globally. But warm words on paper are cold comfort on the exhibition floor. In contrast, targeted financial support and senior government engagement send a clear signal that Britain not only values innovation, but backs it when the stakes are highest.

You need only speak to the founders who travelled thousands of miles from the UK, many self-funding their trips, to hear a consistent refrain: without coordinated help, British firms are underexposed and under-networked. One CEO told me he felt “overshadowed” by a neighbouring European country’s pavilion that looked and felt like a national investment. Another confessed that, had it not been for private backing, they might not have made the trip at all.

This should trouble us. The future of British business growth is not solely in domestic policy tinkering, it is in international trade, collaboration and visibility. Trade shows are not merely exhibitions; they are signposts for global relevance. When your government isn’t present in a meaningful way, the world notices — and so do investors, partners and international customers.

Let’s not construe this as an attack on civil servants or ministers. The truth is simpler: the UK is juggling competing priorities, cost of living, health services, geopolitics, and a multi-billion trade show in Nevada can seem indulgent by comparison. But that is precisely the point. Innovation and global business growth cannot be an afterthought if we are to compete with economies that deliberately align industrial strategy with outward-facing support.

Last year I was talking to a French startup founder, and I asked what her government’s presence meant to her, she smiled and said: “It means someone believes in our success before we prove it.” That sort of confidence matters. It turns heads, opens doors and scales businesses in ways that a sterling-denominated press release never will.

Britain has all the ingredients to be a leader: world-class universities with their numerous spin-offs, inventive entrepreneurs, and a time zone that bridges East and West. But without visible, tactical governmental support at flagship global events, we risk these assets being underestimated or, worse, overlooked.

If the UK truly aspires to be a global tech and trade powerhouse, then it must treat trade shows like CES as what they are: frontline diplomatic and economic missions.
Because if we aren’t prepared to support our businesses on the world’s biggest stages, we shouldn’t be surprised when others step into the spotlight, and we’re left in the auditorium seats, polite but absent.

Read more:
Why Britain’s world stage presence deserves more than lip service

American men have lost their work ethic and increasingly feel entitled to a comfortable life without applying themselves, according to Wilbur Ross, who served throughout Donald Trump’s first term.

Ross, the Wall Street investor once dubbed the “king of bankruptcy”, said younger generations have been “coddled” by growing up in a wealthy society, weakening the drive to work that underpinned previous generations and threatening long-term economic growth.

“It used to be that the mantra for any young person was work hard and you can make progress and do better than your parents did,” Ross said. “It never occurred to anyone to not work, at least not anyone I knew. There’s been a whole change in that.”

He argued that a combination of state benefits and parental prosperity had created a sense of entitlement. “I think all these [benefits] programmes, and also the relative prosperity of the current generation’s parents, have created a feeling that they’re entitled to a nice lifestyle, independently of whether they perform any kind of meaningful work,” he said.

“If you’re an able-bodied person who’s not willing to even seek a job, why should you prosper?”

Overall labour force participation among Americans aged 25 to 54, the so-called prime-age workforce, fell sharply during the pandemic but has since recovered to 83.8 per cent, one of the highest levels in nearly a quarter of a century. However, Ross and other economists say that headline figure masks a profound long-term shift among men.

Prime-age male participation has been in structural decline since the 1960s, even as female participation has surged to record levels. The divergence is especially pronounced among younger workers.

Analysis by the Brookings Institution shows that labour force participation among 25-year-old men has fallen in every successive generation since 1969. For men born in the late 1990s, participation at that age stands at about 84 per cent, down from 93 per cent for those born roughly 45 years earlier.

By contrast, participation among women of the same age has climbed steadily, rising from 66.3 per cent to 76.6 per cent over the same period.

Ross said the trend among men was particularly damaging for economic prospects. “I think there are a lot of men who just don’t want to work that hard,” he said.

Workforce participation, he added, was one of the three critical drivers of economic growth. “One is growth in the population of working-age people — that’s something you have no control over in the near term. The other two are productivity and workforce participation. And of the two, for the moment, workforce participation is probably the more important.”

Economists have pointed to several factors behind the decline in male participation, including the loss of industrial jobs, the rise of service-sector roles traditionally dominated by women, higher incarceration rates leaving many men with criminal records, the expansion of disability benefits, and persistent weaknesses in education and skills training.

Together, they warn, these forces risk leaving a growing cohort of men disengaged from work — with long-term consequences for productivity, public finances and social cohesion.

Read more:
Men have lost their work ethic, says Trump’s former commerce secretary

There’s a particular sound that stays with you once you’ve lived in the English countryside. Not birdsong, that’s too obvious, but the deeper rhythm of things: the tractor coughing into life at dawn, Chameau boots crunching on gravel, the hooves of the horses going out for a hack, the soft murmur of a village pub where everyone knows exactly why you’re there even if they’ve never seen you before.

I had a house in rural Northamptonshire once. Not a fantasy “weekend retreat”, but a place where life actually happened. One evening, over a pint of ‘landlord’ and slightly judgemental, the village gamekeeper offered to teach me how to shoot. “You get good enough,” he said, “and maybe you can join us on a day at the estate.”

A few sessions at the clays with a beautiful Purdey side-by-side and I was hooked, not just on hitting the target – which I am told my hit rate was very impressive – but on the world around it. The quiet discipline. The sense of responsibility. The unspoken understanding that this was not about bloodlust or bravado, but stewardship. About knowing the land, respecting it, and earning your place within it.

Which is why, as 2025 limps to a close, I find myself deeply uneasy about the future of Britain’s rural economy, and the way of life bound up in it.

We’ve been told, repeatedly, that concerns about farming, shooting, gamekeeping and rural business are either nostalgic indulgences or political dog whistles. Watch a few episodes of Clarkson’s Farm and tell me that again with a straight face. Strip away the jokes and celebrity sheen and what you’re left with is a documentary about a sector living permanently on the brink,  one failed harvest, one policy tweak, one cost spike away from collapse.

That brinkmanship became painfully clear this year when the government set its sights on agricultural inheritance tax relief. What began as a plan to end long-standing protections for family farms triggered outrage across rural Britain. As reported by the Financial Times, the subsequent retreat, raising thresholds and softening the blow, was presented as a compromise. But uncertainty, once introduced, doesn’t politely leave again. It lingers. It freezes investment. It accelerates exits.

Family farms are not tax shelters. They are capital-intensive, low-margin, generational businesses whose value is tied up in land rather than liquidity. Treating them like dormant wealth piles rather than working enterprises is how you dismantle a sector quietly, without ever admitting you meant to.

And it’s not just farmers feeling the squeeze. Gamekeeping, shooting and countryside management support tens of thousands of jobs and underpin rural tourism, hospitality and supply chains. A stark warning was sounded recently in The Telegraph’s analysis of the decline of gamekeeping, which laid bare how rising costs, regulation and political hostility are pushing skilled rural workers out altogether.

This isn’t culture war fluff. It’s economics.

Add to that the sense, increasingly hard to shake, that rural Britain is culturally misunderstood by those writing policy. Labour’s proposals around animal welfare and trail hunting have reignited fears that legislation is being shaped through an urban moral lens, with The Guardian reporting warnings from countryside groups that rural voices are being marginalised rather than engaged.

Meanwhile, the data tells its own grim story. Farm closures continue to outpace new starts, with thousands of holdings disappearing under the weight of rising costs, labour shortages and unpredictable returns, as highlighted by FarmingUK. When a farm goes, it rarely goes alone. The contractor loses work. The feed supplier closes. The pub shortens its hours. The village hollows out.

What worries me most is that this erosion is happening quietly, politely, without the drama that usually forces political reckoning. There’s no single villain. No obvious cliff edge. Just a steady draining away of viability until one day we look around and wonder where everyone went.

The countryside isn’t a theme park or a television backdrop. It’s an economic ecosystem that feeds us, employs us and anchors communities. Once it’s gone, you don’t rebuild it with grants and slogans.

I learnt to shoot because a gamekeeper trusted me with his craft. That trust, between land and people, tradition and modernity, economy and culture, is what’s really under threat. If policymakers keep treating rural Britain as a sentimental inconvenience rather than a strategic asset, they may wake up one day to find the countryside still looks beautiful… but no longer works. And that, unlike a missed clay, is a mistake you don’t get to take another shot at.

Read more:
I worry for our rural economy – and yes, it’s personal

Let’s be absolutely candid: the siren song of easing off climate commitments is tempting the corporate class and it stinks.

If 2025 was indeed the year business quietly began retreating from net zero, watering down pledges or scrapping them outright, then 2026 must be the year UK firms rediscover backbone and purpose. After all, the alternative isn’t merely inconvenient; it is recklessly self-defeating.

The Guardian’s recent investigation suggests that, from retailers to banks, carmakers to councils, pledges once trumpeted from press release rooftops are being softened or shelved. The rhetoric of carbon-neutral economies now reads, all too often, like a relic of corporate virtue signalling rather than a serious business strategy.

Yet here’s the part no executive memo seems to state with enough clarity: net zero isn’t a fad. It is the defining economic transformation of our era, as seismic as electrification or the internet. Treat it as a mere box-ticking exercise and you will wake up in a world where markets and reputations have passed you by.

Let’s dismantle the fearmongering for a moment. There’s a narrative circulating among the financially cautious that climate action is a cost rather than an investment. That delivering net-zero targets detracts from near-term profits. That shareholders want dividends, not decarbonisation. And then there’s the grumbling about regulation: “not now, not yet, don’t you see we have bills to pay?”

Balderdash. Yes, there are genuine short-term costs to decarbonisation. But those are far outweighed by long-term economic opportunity. Research by credible bodies such as the British Chambers of Commerce and McKinsey shows the net-zero transition could be worth over £1 trillion to UK business by 2030, through innovation, exports and first-mover advantage. That’s not greenwash: that’s maths.

Indeed, if British business becomes the laggard rather than the leader, it won’t just cede moral high ground, it will cede market share. Markets today are global, and buyers increasingly demand sustainability from their suppliers. Investors are doing the same. Lenders, insurers and big pension funds are incorporating climate risk into pricing and capital allocation in ways that will only intensify. To flinch now is to risk being uninvestable in the very near future.

Some might counter that regulatory uncertainty, especially post-Brexit policy shifts or political swings, makes sustained net-zero commitments precarious. And yes, the political landscape has been fractious. But that’s exactly why business leadership matters. When politicians waver, when policy is debated, corporate resolve can act as the stable anchor for long-term strategy. Step back and someone else will fill the vacuum — and it won’t be challengers with sustainability at their core.

Let’s touch on those sectors where back-tracking has been most glaring in 2025. Finance, for instance, saw cracks in its climate alliance frameworks with departures from net-zero banking coalitions. Banks such as HSBC delayed parts of their climate goals, drawing sharp criticism.

The logical leap here, that commitments can be postponed when the going gets tough, is exactly where the sceptics win. But imagine the message it sends if UK banks, the very institutions underwriting corporate growth, say they will only play ball when profits are guaranteed. It instantly undermines trust in the entire system of environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration in corporate strategy.

Retailers, too, have delayed ambitions. Supply-chain complexities and cost pressures are cited as reasons. But shoving targets back a decade or more does not solve those issues; it merely kicks the problem into the future.

And let’s not pretend automotive and aviation are immune, areas where clear net-zero pathways have, in places, ground to a halt. Travelling for Business recently highlighted how even policy support has become ambivalent.

So, where do we go from here? First: reaffirmation, not revision, of net-zero commitments. Ambition must translate into actionable, transparent transition plans rooted in science — not adjustable targets that bend in the breeze of short-term pressures.

Second: collaboration over retreat. Businesses big and small should lean into frameworks like the Science Based Targets initiative, which offers rigorous, scientifically grounded pathways to emission reductions. These are not gimmicks; they are industry-agnostic roadmaps to resilience.

Third: innovate, don’t abdicate. Let’s double down on electrification, circular economy models, and zero emissions supply chains. And let’s bring SMEs along for the ride. Data from the latest UK Net Zero Business Census shows that a majority of larger firms still regard net zero as strategic — a sign of encouragement if acted upon.

Finally, let’s call out the folly of short-termism. I am no romantic, nor a climate activist by trade. But business is nothing without its reputational capital. The choice is simple: be remembered as the generation that met the challenge of our age with grit and ingenuity, or the one that blinked.

UK business must not water down its net-zero pledges in 2026. Not because it’s easy, but because it is the only credible path to sustainable growth, investor confidence and competitive advantage in a rapidly reshaping global economy.

Read more:
Net zero isn’t a luxury: why UK business must keep its nerve in 2026

To every business that cares about its reputation, customer conversations matter.

Providing great service has always mattered. Doing it brilliantly and consistently, is where things become hard, particularly for SMEs juggling growth, limited resources and rising customer expectations. At Moneypenny, we exist to solve that challenge. By combining unrivalled people and smart AI, we represent businesses seamlessly, delivering exceptional conversations that protect reputation and drive growth.

That mission has never been more relevant. Customer expectations have shifted dramatically in recent years, changing how people want to engage with businesses of every size, from retail and hospitality to trades, tech, healthcare and property.

Customers now expect the best of both worlds: speed and simplicity for everyday tasks, and real human expertise for the moments that matter. This shift is forcing companies to rethink how they deliver service. Hybrid-service models, which blend human connection with intelligent technology, are fast becoming the new standard. For SMEs, this isn’t just another trend to navigate; it’s a genuine opportunity to compete more confidently with much larger players.

Customers want both: personal expertise and digital convenience

Today’s customers expect seamless experiences. They want reassurance, empathy and expertise when a situation is sensitive or complex, but they also expect quick answers, instant access and zero friction for simpler interactions.

We see this every day across the thousands of businesses we support. Routine enquiries don’t need to wait in a queue, and customers don’t want to repeat themselves or struggle through clunky processes. At the same time, when something really matters, a billing issue, a legal query, a health concern, people want to speak to someone who listens and understands.

Hybrid-service models make this possible. At Moneypenny, our AI Voice Agent can handle routine calls instantly, 24/7, while our people step in for conversations that require judgement, nuance or care. Crucially, the experience is designed around choice. Some customers are perfectly happy to engage with AI for quick answers; others want to speak to a human straight away, and they shouldn’t be made to fight the system to do so. It’s not about choosing between automation and humans. It’s about using both intentionally, and transparently, to create better, more meaningful customer experiences. For SMEs in particular, getting this balance right, and respecting customer preference, can be a powerful point of difference.

Designing a hybrid experience that still feels premium

One common concern for smaller businesses is whether hybrid service will dilute their personal touch. The reality is that it doesn’t, not when the experience is designed with intention.

High-value moments, onboarding calls, consultations, problem-solving and relationship-building, should always feel personal. These are the interactions customers remember and talk about. Meanwhile, routine tasks such as appointment booking, updates or FAQs can often be delivered remotely or through technology without reducing quality.

What customers dislike isn’t the fact that a service is hybrid; it’s confusion. Unclear communication, inconsistent tone and uncertainty about who is handling what quickly erode trust. Setting expectations early, explaining how your service works and being transparent about the customer journey all build confidence. And confidence builds loyalty.

A well-designed hybrid model allows SMEs to deliver a premium experience consistently, even as they scale.

Restructuring teams to support hybrid delivery

Hybrid service doesn’t just change how businesses serve customers; it changes how teams operate internally.

Many SMEs simply don’t have the headcount to manage multiple communication channels or provide round-the-clock responsiveness, but they don’t need to. Outsourcing services such as lead qualification, appointment booking, payment taking, live chat or administrative support is often far more sustainable than hiring in-house. It also frees internal teams to focus on the work that truly drives growth.

When repetitive tasks are removed, people can concentrate on customer care, problem-solving and strategic work, the areas where human expertise really shines. Hybrid models also encourage more specialised roles, improving both efficiency and job satisfaction.

That said, hybrid raises the bar on communication. Clear messaging, consistent tone of voice and strong documentation are essential to delivering a seamless experience across both digital and human touchpoints. Businesses that invest in this groundwork are the ones that see the greatest return.

Pricing differently in a hybrid world

Customer expectations around pricing are evolving too.

Businesses can position high-impact, specialist support at a premium, while tech-enabled or remote elements can be priced more predictably. This opens the door to clearer packages, subscriptions or retainers, models that are particularly attractive to SMEs looking for stable, recurring revenue.

Hybrid delivery can also improve margins. When routine tasks are automated or outsourced, costs become more controllable without compromising service quality. Transparency is critical here. Customers trust businesses that clearly explain where efficiency is gained and where expertise is being applied. When people understand the value, they are far more willing to pay for quality.

Technology should make life easier, not harder

With so many tools on the market, it’s easy for SMEs to feel overwhelmed. But technology adopted for its own sake rarely delivers results. The most successful hybrid businesses start with the outcome they want to achieve for their customers, then select the technology required to enable it, not the other way around. By designing the customer journey first and choosing tools that genuinely enhance it, businesses avoid unnecessary complexity and focus investment where it delivers real impact.

The right technology should reduce admin, integrate smoothly, simplify service delivery and complement your people. If it doesn’t make life easier for your team or your customers, it isn’t the right fit.

At its best, technology fades into the background, enabling businesses to focus on what really matters: building relationships, protecting reputation and delivering great service, every time.

Hybrid isn’t a buzzword, it’s a competitive advantage

For SMEs across every sector, hybrid-service models are no longer optional. They are a strategic advantage. Done well, they improve customer satisfaction, increase operational efficiency, reduce pressure on teams and allow businesses to scale sustainably without losing their personal touch.

At Moneypenny, our role is simple: to be a trusted partner, always in our clients’ corner, helping them deliver exceptional customer conversations that drive growth. By combining brilliant people with smart AI, we empower businesses of all sizes to compete, grow and protect the reputations they’ve worked so hard to build.

Most importantly, hybrid brings together what customers value most: the speed of technology and the humanity of real people. And that combination will define the businesses that thrive in 2026 and beyond.

By Mark Finlay, Chief Commercial Officer, Moneypenny

Read more:
Why hybrid-service models are the future for business in 2026

Every January, millions of people resolve to get healthier. They join gyms, hire trainers, and put themselves in environments engineered for progress. The formula is obvious: the right expertise, the right structure, and the right people make improvements inevitable.

Yet when it comes to our businesses, the engines that employ people and shape industries, we often operate in isolation. We grind away alone, convinced that needing input is somehow an admission of weakness. And after building multi-million-pound companies, we tell ourselves we should have all the answers by now.

But the founders who scale fastest understand something important. Business health requires continuous investment, expert insight, and a community strong enough to hold you accountable to your ambitions.

Running a scale-up company means facing decisions that are rarely simple and never something you can solve through a quick internet search. Should you expand internationally? How do you keep a key hire who is wavering? What capital structure will get you through the next phase of growth?

Is now the moment to acquire, or the moment to be acquired?

These are not questions you eventually figure out through trial and error. They are questions that grow heavier the longer you hesitate. Meanwhile, competitors who seek support, challenge their thinking, and move with speed advance.

I have watched exceptional founders spend months debating a move that a peer, someone who has already navigated the same crossroads, could have helped them resolve in a single afternoon. That lost time is not hypothetical. It is lost revenue, lost positioning, and lost momentum. And momentum, once gone, is incredibly difficult to regain.

When you consistently engage with other founders who operate at your level, everything shifts. Problems that felt overwhelming shrink down to size. Blind spots become visible. Opportunities you would have missed suddenly come into focus. You begin to recognise patterns because you are learning from the lived experience of others who have already paid the price for those insights.

This is not networking in the traditional sense. It is not swapping business cards over canapés. It is about building a trusted circle of people who carry the same weight, face the same pressures, and understand the stakes in a way no investor, adviser, or team member ever can.

Inside our community at Helm, I have seen founders cut their time to decision on major strategic calls by more than half. Not because they rush, but because they move with clarity. They pressure test assumptions, tap into collective intelligence, and learn in hours what would have taken years to uncover alone.

The gym analogy is more literal than it sounds. Turning up once changes nothing. Showing up consistently changes everything. The founders who get real value treat peer engagement as a discipline. They block time for Forums the same way they block time for investor meetings. They show up prepared. They contribute. They understand that a community only works when every member is committed to the health of the whole.

As you set your priorities for the year ahead, ask yourself a simple question: are you investing in the health of your business with the same intentionality you invest in your own?

If you want to accelerate in 2026, working harder in isolation will not get you there. Surrounding yourself with the right people will. Founders who have overcome the challenges you are facing. Founders who challenge your assumptions and push you to think bigger and execute better.

The businesses that will dominate the next decade will not be led by lone wolves. They will be led by founders who understand that speed comes from shared intelligence, and growth accelerates when you stop solving every problem for the first time.

Your business deserves the same commitment, discipline, and care that you give your body every January. Make 2026 the year you invest in its health properly.

Read more:
Treat Your Business Like Your Body This New Year 

Each December, the festive season seems to arrive sooner than expected. As employees strive to meet year-end deadlines, the responsibility of organising the annual Christmas social arises without warning.

Although securing a venue may appear straightforward, the complexities of balancing budgets and schedules can render an additional strain on already demanding workloads.

However, these end-of-year gatherings hold more significance than most people realise.They represent one of the few opportunities for teams to pause and reconnect before another year begins. When executed effectively, these events remind employees why they enjoy working together.

Drawing on my experience organising social events through StreetHunt Games, for over 4000 teams, I’ve seen what separates a good event from one that people talk about long after it’s over.

Why does connection matter?

With stress levels and burnout continuing to rise across workplaces, employee recognition should remain a central priority for organisational leaders. Researchers from People Management Insight suggest that acknowledging employees’ individual talents can play a crucial role in preventing burnout and enhancing well-being. Beyond this, the desire for authentic connection often becomes even more pronounced during the holiday season.

A thoughtfully planned Christmas event can offer employees a valuable opportunity to step away from their daily responsibilities and decompress. More importantly, well-executed corporate socials can serve as a meaningful expression of appreciation. Moments of validation can strengthen workplace culture in ways that quarterly check-ins or corporate slogans fail to.

Don’t overthink it

When the event finally arrives, there can be a tendency to overfill the schedule in an effort to make the experience feel substantial. However, the most successful events are rarely the most elaborate; rather, they feel effortless and authentic.

Employees often seek opportunities to relax and reconnect beyond their regular work environment. Simple Christmas team activities tend to foster the most memorable nights for colleagues. In these settings, motivation and enjoyment stem from genuine social engagement rather than the intricacy of the event.

For example, corporate groups participating in a StreetHunt experience frequently describe their favourite moments not as the structured elements of the game itself, but as the spontaneous interactions that emerge during it. Such as witnessing quieter team members gain confidence and actively contribute. These small, unscripted connections often become the highlight everyone remembers.

After playing one of StreetHunt Games outdoor escape rooms, the director of a global recruitment company said: ‘Competing as a team is great fun – the degrees of competitiveness and the problem-solving approach style of each member shines through. Everybody’s skills and experience help shape the result. It’s a fun process and part of why working with people sharing a common goal is fun.

Building a strong culture as a team is super important, though – taking time as a leader to get to know individuals and help foster connections is like walking a tightrope. Team culture can mean and be lots of different things, but when aligned well, it helps drive people forward and build future success.’

Focus on shared experience

Ultimately, it is not the physical setting that determines the success of a Christmas party, but the quality of the shared experiences it brings. Whether it’s a collaborative challenge, a city-based adventure, or a shared meal, the objective is to embrace connections among team members.

At StreetHunt Games, this has been observed repeatedly; the location quickly becomes the background to the collective experience. Getting a team out of their office and into a different physical location helps to create moments of teamwork, laughter, and shared discovery, which resonate far more deeply. And not just a different physical environment, but also the purpose of what they’re doing, changing – from working together on a consulting project to bonding over a fun challenge.

Activities that promote movement, a different type of problem-solving, and light-hearted competition often generate a stronger sense of engagement and cohesion. In this way, creative alternatives can leave a far stronger impression than a perfectly decorated venue or a three-course dinner.  Research from Bamboo HR stated that colleague communication improves after team-building activities and 61% said morale is improved.

A genuine thank-you

End-of-year socials should not be perceived as obligations but as a genuine celebration for your team’s collective achievement. A moment that conveys, “Thank you, your efforts make a difference.” Employee recognition remains one of the most influential factors in loyalty and retention among employees. Research from People Management Insight indicates that authentic expressions of appreciation significantly enhance employees’ sense of value and motivation. Ranging from personalised notes to thoughtful words are sincere gestures of gratitude, leaving an impact well into the new year.

When employees feel genuinely seen and appreciated, the overall team dynamic transforms. What might otherwise be an end-of-year obligation instead becomes a meaningful celebration of contribution. These activities can reinforce morale and strengthen the organisation’s collective work culture.

Common pitfalls to avoid

Even the most well-intentioned organisers can encounter challenges when planning end-of-year socials. Several common pitfalls can diminish the overall impact of an event:

• Over-planning: Allow space for spontaneity. Some of the most meaningful interactions occur organically rather than through a structured itinerary. Simplicity often enables more genuine engagement.
• Focusing too much on expensive venues: Employees are more likely to remember how they felt during the event than the details of the surroundings. Resources are best invested in experiences that facilitate connection rather than extravagant venues.
• Forgetting hybrid or remote employees: Inclusivity matters; consider how to make everyone feel a part of the celebration. Failing to do so can induce feelings of disconnection and contribute to burnout in the year ahead.
• Losing sight of purpose: Remember, this isn’t just another corporate event, but an opportunity to thank your team. Keep this experience personal and expand connections between colleagues.

From stress to success

The most effective Christmas team event doesn’t have to be something extravagant; it has to be intentional and meaningful. Their purpose is to remind employees of what they have accomplished collectively and to send them into the new year with a renewed sense of connection and belonging.

At StreetHunt Games, we have consistently observed the balance of laughter, collaboration, and light-hearted competition that can transform colleagues into genuine collaborators.  When an event feels human rather than corporate, it resonates more deeply to create memories long after the festive season has ended.

Overall, the most valuable approach to planning corporate socials is to prioritise authenticity over complexity. Keep the experience simple and filled with genuine appreciation. In doing so, the great gift leaders can offer their team is recognition that their effort and dedication truly mattered.

Read more:
From planning to applause – How to run a Christmas team event they’ll talk about in January

There was a time – not so long ago, though it already feels sepia-tinted – when London was the sort of place that tourists arrived in with stars in their eyes and left with shopping bags cutting off circulation at the fingers.

Harrods bags, Selfridges bags, Mulberry bags, the bright yellow of Fortnum’s peeking out of a suitcase being sat on in a hotel lobby. Europe’s favourite grown-up playground; Manhattan’s chic transatlantic sibling; Tokyo’s idea of European swagger with better tailoring and more chaotic restaurants.

And somehow, somewhere between the end of the pandemic and the beginning of whatever this new national habit of self-sabotage is, we decided that this was all terribly inconvenient.

Because now, instead of rolling out the red carpet to high-spending visitors who fund vast swathes of our hospitality and retail industries, we appear determined to trip them up with a series of policy banana skins. A kind of bureaucratic Mario Kart, except instead of cartoon plumbers skidding off Rainbow Road, it’s Andrea Baldo at Mulberry watching millions evaporate from his London tills.

First came the abolition of tax-free shopping, what the press politely calls the “tourist tax”, but business leaders now refer to in much the same tone one reserves for a wasp nest in the loft. It was, in the gentle phrasing of one retail boss, a “massive global disadvantage”. He’s not wrong. France woos Chinese visitors with instant VAT refunds at Charles de Gaulle, Italy practically hands tourists a Prosecco as they process theirs. Meanwhile, we greet them with the fiscal equivalent of a traffic warden in a foul mood.

Retail chiefs have been patient – or at least, as patient as you can be when pointing out, month after month, that the maths simply does not work. Tourists want the thrill of a VAT-free splurge. If we don’t offer it, they simply go elsewhere. Hence the growing chorus from the likes of Mulberry’s Baldo, who has watched London sales tank while Paris boutiques hum along nicely. It doesn’t take a PwC report to see what’s happening: shoppers follow value, and value has emigrated.

You might think the lesson here is obvious. If you want tourists, the big-spending sort who treat a long weekend as an Olympic sport, then don’t whack them with a levy the moment they land. You’d imagine, perhaps naively, that the next step would be to reverse the damage, or at least stop adding new obstacles.

But no. This is London. And in London, when there’s an opportunity to make a bad idea worse, we seize it with both hands and a press release.

Step forward Sadiq Khan, announcing with great flourish the potential introduction of a second tourist tax – a nightly levy on hotel stays that would, we are told, “supercharge London’s economy”. Which is an interesting definition of “supercharge”, unless we’ve started using the word to mean “ask people for more money so they spend less of it elsewhere”.

This proposed hotel levy, trumpeted as bringing the capital in line with other global cities, is the second punch in a one-two assault that the hospitality sector absolutely did not ask for. Because let’s be clear: London is not Barcelona, drowning in stag dos stripping in fountains. Nor is it Amsterdam, declaring war on the Hen Party Industrial Complex. London’s issue is not too many tourists — it’s that we are making ourselves unattractive to the ones we need.

Which is why the hospitality sector is looking a bit like a boxer in the 11th round, wobbling slightly, blood in the eye, muttering “Really? Another one?”

Hotels have only just crawled out of the Covid crater. Staffing costs up. Energy bills up. Supply chain madness. Then a visitor economy still recovering from the years when the only people checking into hotels were essential workers and couples pretending they were “working from home”. Revenues are fragile. Margins are thin. And now a city-hall-branded surcharge?

The timing is astonishing. Just as business travellers, the holy grail of midweek occupancy, begin to return… just as American tourists rediscover the joys of London theatre and pubs with carpets… just as Asia resumes sending coachloads of shoppers armed with Amex and enthusiasm… we decide to hand them a bill for having turned up at all.

What message does this send? The same as the VAT-refund fiasco: London is becoming the most expensive city in Europe to visit, and the least rewarding.

It is fundamentally a failure of imagination. Instead of asking “How do we compete?”, policymakers seem content to ask, “How much can we get away with before someone books Berlin instead?”

The answer, increasingly, is: not much.

Because tourists talk. They compare. They calculate. And when your long-haul holiday already costs thousands, and the pound is weak, and hotels are pricier than ever, that extra nightly charge isn’t symbolic – it’s irritating. Add in the lack of VAT refunds and suddenly a weekend that once felt like a treat becomes an exercise in fiscal masochism.

All this might be palatable if the revenue raised were earmarked for something dazzling — a transport revolution, a cultural renaissance, a hospitality uplift so extraordinary that visitors would queue to pay. But the rhetoric is vague, the benefits theoretical, and the impact on the ground immediate.

The truth is brutally simple: London thrives when it is welcoming, frictionless, rewarding and – crucially – competitive. What we have instead is a creeping perception that our leaders view tourists not as valued guests, but as walking wallets from which to extract just a bit more because, well, they can.

The hospitality and retail sectors don’t need another tax. They need policymakers who understand that the visitor economy is not a tap that can be turned on and off at whim. It is delicate, reactive, easily diverted.

Right now, we are steering it away.

London doesn’t need a second tourist tax. It needs a second thought.

Read more:
Is the government intent on killing London’s hospitality sector with a double-whammy tourist tax?

When Britain’s adopted steel king Lakshmi Mittal, gala-favourite philanthropist and one of the country’s most visible billionaire residents, quietly announced he was shifting his tax residency to Switzerland, it barely caused a ripple in Westminster.

Another wealthy non-dom heading for more forgiving fiscal pastures, shrugged the commentariat.

But for anyone paying attention to Britain’s charitable sector, Mittal’s departure is more than a footnote in a tax-policy debate. It is a red flag. A warning. A canary collapsing in the philanthropic coal mine.

Mittal is not leaving because of boredom with Belgravia. As Business Matters reported, his exit follows the dismantling of the non-dom system and, critically, the looming threat of UK inheritance tax on his global estate. He is not alone. Norwegian shipping billionaire John Fredriksen, German investor Christian Angermayer, and tech founders Herman Narula (Improbable) and Nik Storonsky (Revolut) have already slipped out of Heathrow with one recurring reason circled in red: UK tax policy.

And this, however we try to frame it, poses an awkward question.  One the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, hasn’t quite acknowledged in her rush to tighten the fiscal screws: if Britain is pushing out the very people who fund its museums, universities, research institutes, and children’s hospitals, could UK charities be the biggest losers of her brave new tax world?

Let’s be honest. Charities don’t live on wishful thinking. They live on cheques. And while the British public is generous in spirit, it is the handful of ultra-wealthy donors, people like Mittal, who quietly bank-roll the big stuff: endowments, buildings, specialist medical equipment, entire research departments. Mittal himself has given millions over decades to Great Ormond Street Hospital, to public libraries, to the arts, to humanitarian causes, to Oxford University. When such people stay, Britain wins. When they leave, Britain loses.

This isn’t a defence of tax privileges for the wealthy. Reeves is right to say the system needed reform. But there is a difference between fixing a loophole and creating a deterrent. Between modernising policy and frightening away those who play an outsized role in keeping Britain’s charitable landscape afloat.

The truth, and it feels almost unfashionable to say it aloud, is that major philanthropy is highly sensitive to tax signals. Wealthy donors don’t just give out of generosity; they give within systems that make generosity rational. Alter the incentives, tighten the inheritance-tax net, abolish the regime that made London competitive, and suddenly Dubai or Zug begins to look less like a holiday bolthole and more like a sensible postcode.

And when donors exit, charities suffer twice. First, through the immediate loss of multimillion-pound gifts. Second, through the long-term shift in their funding model: fewer large, flexible philanthropic donations and greater reliance on small public gifts that, while admirable, rarely pay for the expensive or unglamorous parts of a charity’s work, the electricity bill, the IT system, the nurses’ salaries, the safeguarding training. The things no one wants their name on.

It is too simple and too glib for ministers to argue that “fairness” trumps all. Fairness to whom? A tax system that chases out philanthropists may technically be fairer, but it may also leave the nation’s most vulnerable without the funding safety-net that government has neither the budget nor political appetite to replace.

What’s more, philanthropy carries a reputational weight. Billionaires giving large sums in Britain sends a signal that the UK is still a place where causes flourish, research advances and culture thrives. When they relocate, the narrative shifts: from “Britain, philanthropic powerhouse” to “Britain, too expensive to care”.

Charities know this. They’ve known it for years. But they also know something uncomfortable: you can’t replace a Mittal with 10,000 £20 donations. Not when you’re funding MRI machines, scientific breakthroughs or entire children’s hospices.

So where does this leave us? Ideally, with a little honesty. The government must recognise that smart tax policy is not only about fairness but about outcomes. If Reeves wants to avoid turning charity CEOs into professional beggars, she may need to pair her reforms with targeted incentives for high-impact giving or risk watching the voluntary sector shrink in real time.

Charities, meanwhile, must prepare for a new era: flatter donor lists, heavier dependence on domestic donors, and more resource-intensive fundraising just to stand still. The days of relying on a handful of loyal billionaire patrons might be ending, and not because the donors changed their hearts, but because the government changed the rules.

If the exodus continues  if more Mittals, more Fredriksens, more Narulas pack their bags the question will not be whether Reeves’s tax shake-up was principled. It will be whether the price was too high, too blunt and too blind to its collateral damage.

And the greatest losers may not be the wealthy at all but the charities who depend on them, and the people those charities exist to help.

Read more:
The rich are fleeing and our charities may be left holding the bill

Chancellor Rachel Reeves should use the Autumn Budget to spell out how the government plans to deploy the £2 billion earmarked for the UK’s AI Opportunities Action Plan, according to leading audit, tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg.

Evelina Panchal, a director at the firm, said businesses urgently needed clarity on how the funding would be allocated, arguing that proper investment planning could unlock transformative gains for the economy.

“Research from Microsoft suggests AI represents a £550 billion opportunity for the UK over the next decade,” she said. “To support the tech sector, Rachel Reeves should confirm how the £2bn commitment will be used.”

The AI Opportunities Action Plan, announced in the 2025 Spending Review, aims to strengthen the UK’s national AI infrastructure and includes proposals for AI Growth Zones, where planning rules would be relaxed to speed up the development of data centres and compute facilities. Panchal said tech firms needed specifics around timelines, locations and access if they were to benefit from the programme.

The tech sector contributed £71bn to the UK economy in 2023 and employed 1.77 million people in 2024. Panchal said the potential impact of the £2bn investment depended heavily on how fast the money was released and whether the government delivered a detailed roadmap.
“Infrastructure gaps, skills shortages and slow business adoption remain the biggest challenges,” she warned. “Reeves must set clear timelines and implementation plans.”

Panchal also urged the Chancellor not to introduce changes in the Budget that could undermine the UK’s attractiveness as a hub for digital entrepreneurship.

She said share-based incentive schemes such as Enterprise Management Incentives (EMIs) — widely used in the tech and AI sectors — must not be restricted, as they are critical to attracting specialist talent in a competitive global market.

“Rachel Reeves should not introduce any further changes to Capital Gains Tax, exit taxes or wealth taxes,” she added. “If she does, it risks killing off the remaining entrepreneurial spirit in the tech sector, with negative consequences for innovation and economic growth.”

She said the UK needed to remain “a supportive and fair environment for tech companies and their founders” to ensure they continue to operate in Britain, bringing essential investment, jobs and revenue.

Read more:
Reeves urged to set out how £2bn AI investment will be spent in Autumn Budget

When I first started taking clients out for dinner, you could sit under the copper dome of Le Gavroche, order a bottle of claret you’d never dare drink at home, and—after a couple of courses, a soufflé, and a few discreet nods from the maître d’—leave only mildly lighter in wallet and spirit.

Today, on the same site, you can do much the same thing at Matt Abé’s new venture Bonheur. Only now, the bill for two will come in at £250 before you’ve even blinked at the digestif list.

I’m not one for false nostalgia—restaurants must evolve, chefs must be paid, and if anyone’s earned the right to resurrect a Mayfair temple of gastronomy it’s Abé. But there’s a creeping sense that fine dining has priced itself into absurdity. And for once, it’s not just about greedy restaurateurs; it’s about the country we’ve built around them.

Energy bills have soared. Not just yours or mine, but those of restaurants that rely on gas ranges, endless refrigeration, and enough light to flatter every banker’s jowls. Add to that the cost of labour in an industry already haemorrhaging staff post-Brexit, and suddenly that tasting menu looks less like an indulgence and more like a desperate act of financial survival.

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, would like us to believe that things are finally “stabilising”. I’ve seen more stability in a soufflé during a Tube strike. Her Treasury may be trying to keep business afloat, but when small restaurants are seeing energy costs double, the effect is akin to throwing a life jacket to a man who’s already under the water.

Fine dining, long the glitzy tip of the hospitality iceberg, is the first to feel the cracks. It was never about volume or turnover; it was about art. A kitchen like Abé’s depends on precision, patience, and prodigiously expensive ingredients that can’t be bought in bulk. When your butter alone costs more than most people’s rent, “value for money” ceases to be a meaningful phrase.

Once upon a time, £160-£180 for two was a generous way to mark a birthday or sign a contract. Now it’s merely the entry fee for breathing the same air as a Michelin inspector. And before the chorus begins: yes, I know what goes into it. I’ve sat in enough stainless-steel kitchens to appreciate the choreography of twenty cooks plating thirty dishes in silence. I know the rent in Mayfair. I know what happens to a menu when olive oil triples in price.

But—and forgive the sentimentality—I also know what a restaurant used to mean. At Le Coq d’Argent or Claridge’s or Marcus Wareing’s at the Berkeley, you could justify the expense as part theatre, part negotiation. It was business done in a place that made everyone feel like someone. You weren’t buying food; you were buying atmosphere, attention, and a tiny square of London’s self-confidence.

Today, that same dinner feels faintly transactional. The food is exquisite, the wine list terrifyingly precise, and yet something human has been lost. When you know a single starter costs as much as the average family’s weekly shop, the pleasure sours slightly. The magic evaporates with the steam from the consommé.

Reeves’ problem—indeed, the country’s problem—is that we’ve stopped treating restaurants as part of the cultural ecosystem. When energy prices bite, when VAT hovers at the same rate as fast food, and when landlords charge what they like, the effect isn’t just fewer Michelin stars; it’s fewer apprentices, fewer suppliers, fewer reasons for tourists to bother crossing the Channel for dinner.

You can’t build an “innovation economy” on empty stomachs. Yet that’s what we seem to be trying. The government talks endlessly about growth while allowing one of Britain’s finest export industries—its hospitality scene—to suffocate under the weight of its own bills. Paris subsidises its bistros. Copenhagen practically canonises its chefs. In London, we just raise the price of the tasting menu and pretend everything’s fine.

Of course, there will always be those for whom £250 is a rounding error. The same crowd who will book Bonheur weeks ahead and post filtered shots of their langoustine tartlets. They’re not the problem. The problem is the steady disappearance of the middle ground—the diners who once treated a grand restaurant as a reachable luxury. Those people are now in bistros, if they’re out at all, calculating the cost of bread service.

When I took clients to the Savoy or Claridge’s, it wasn’t just about indulgence; it was diplomacy. Deals were signed over lamb cutlets and laughter. You can’t do that if your guest is nervously Googling “how much to tip on £500”. Fine dining relied on aspiration, not intimidation.

Perhaps we should stop pretending fine dining is for everyone. Let it be what it now is: haute couture, admired from afar. But if we do, we must also accept that Britain loses something. Our restaurants have long been the quiet stages of our national life—places where ambition met artistry, where even a tax accountant could feel momentarily glamorous.

Reeves can’t control every gas bill, but she can recognise that hospitality is not a luxury to be tolerated; it’s a craft to be preserved. Energy relief for small restaurants, tax breaks for training, a re-think of VAT for the sector—none of it would cost much compared to the cultural value at stake.

Because once the £250 dinner becomes the norm, it stops being dinner. It becomes a ceremony for the few, performed behind heavy curtains while the rest of us eat at home and wonder when exactly Britain forgot how to go out.

Read more:
Fine dining’s death by a thousand cuts, and at least a £250 bill

As a sustainable business owner, I’ve always believed that every choice we make, from the suppliers we trust to the packaging that carries our products, reflects our values.

But the conversation around packaging sustainability is evolving quickly, and 2025 is shaping up to be a defining year for anyone in this space.

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) will soon change how every business that uses wood or paper packaging operates. Whether you export into the EU or source materials that pass through European supply chains, you’ll soon need to prove exactly where your wood came from, right down to the plot of land where the tree grew. On paper, this is a hugely positive step. It’s designed to prevent deforestation and ensure that every pallet, crate, box, or sheet of
paperboard comes from responsibly managed forests. But for small and medium-sized sustainable businesses like mine, this new legislation brings both validation and significant challenges.

For larger corporations, compliance may simply mean hiring dedicated teams or investing in advanced traceability systems. For smaller businesses, the impact is more personal and more complex. Many packaging suppliers, particularly those sourcing globally, aren’t yet ready to provide the level of GPS traceability that EUDR demands. As buyers, we’re several steps removed from the original forest. That makes collecting origin data extremely difficult.
The reality is that small businesses don’t have the same resources as large corporations. Gathering, verifying, and documenting the source of every piece of packaging takes time, money, and capacity that many SMEs simply don’t have. Even for companies like mine, built on sustainability from day one, the administrative burden is significant. There’s also a clear imbalance of power. When small businesses ask large suppliers for detailed traceability information, we’re often met with delays and a lack of data, yet we’re still held to the same legal standards as much larger companies.

The scale of work involved in becoming compliant is immense. Every box, tag, and piece of paper now requires a documented chain of custody which for a packaging company means the majority of our products. For a small business, this isn’t just a quick compliance exercise, it’s an ongoing operational project that touches almost every department. Teams that were once focused on creative design, marketing, or customer experience now find themselves deep in
due diligence, spreadsheets, and certification systems. It’s exhausting work, but it’s necessary if we want to maintain the integrity of our sustainability commitments and continue to trade responsibly in the years ahead.

At Tiny Box Company, we’ve been reviewing what the EUDR will mean for us for months now. We’re working closely with our suppliers to ensure the data we need is being captured at source, and we’re doing our best to gain information that is verifiable. It’s a huge effort, and at times it feels like we’re trying to rebuild the foundations of something we already thought was sturdy. But we also know that doing this groundwork now will set us up for a stronger, more transparent future.

Despite these challenges, the EUDR represents a powerful opportunity for businesses like ours. It’s a chance to demonstrate what we’ve been advocating for years: that transparency and traceability are not just ideals, but achievable and necessary goals. For those already committed to sustainability, this regulation provides a platform to prove it. Having verifiable data about our packaging doesn’t just satisfy compliance requirements, it builds trust with our
customers, who increasingly care not just about what a product is made from, but where it came from.

The EUDR is also encouraging more meaningful conversations between businesses and suppliers. To meet these requirements, we’ll need closer collaboration and greater openness, which can ultimately strengthen relationships and lead to more resilient supply chains. Over time, this transparency can help shift the market, rewarding those who operate responsibly and pushing lagging suppliers to catch up.

Another positive outcome is that it’s forcing all of us to reconsider how much packaging we really need. When every gram of wood or paper must be traced to its origin, using less suddenly makes both environmental and financial sense for a lot of businesses. At Tiny Box Company, we’ve already begun rethinking our designs and processes to reduce complexity, choosing materials that are easier to trace and verify. It’s a continuous process to improve what we’re doing and how we work.

It’s easy to see why some small businesses might feel overwhelmed- the paperwork, the data management, the coordination across global suppliers. But once these systems are in place, the benefits will start to show. We’ll have cleaner data, fewer weak points in our supply chains, and greater confidence in the materials we use. In time, the hours invested now could translate into reduced risk, smoother audits, and a stronger story for customers who value transparency.

The EUDR may feel daunting, particularly for small sustainable businesses that are already trying to do the right thing. But it’s important to see this as an opportunity to align values with verifiable action. It’s a reminder that sustainability is something that can be measured, proven, and improved upon.

Knowing where our packaging comes from isn’t just about compliance. It’s about integrity and accountability, about running a business that truly understands what it’s selling and where its products come from.

Read more:
The EUDR: A Challenge and an Opportunity for Small Sustainable Businesses

Aviva chief executive Dame Amanda Blanc has urged the chancellor to rethink plans for a major clampdown on salary sacrifice schemes, warning that the move would penalise both employers and workers while damaging long-term pension saving across the UK.

Speaking ahead of Rachel Reeves’ 26 November budget, Blanc said Aviva was “very concerned” about the Treasury’s intention to cap the amount workers can sacrifice tax-free to just £2,000 a year — a change expected to raise around £2 billion annually.

Salary sacrifice allows employees to give up part of their gross pay in return for pension contributions or other benefits. Because the contribution is taken before tax and national insurance (NI), both individuals and employers save on NI payments. At present, workers can contribute up to £60,000 a year into pensions tax-free under the system.

But pensions experts warn that Reeves’ proposed cap would sharply increase NI bills for employers and employees, likely leading many companies to reduce the generosity of their pension contributions.

“What you’re effectively doing is penalising those employers that actually contribute more to employees’ pensions,” Blanc said. “And you’re also signalling to people who save for their pension that perhaps they shouldn’t do it. That is bad news long-term for the UK, particularly when 15 million people are already not saving enough for retirement.”

The move would also represent a second NI blow for businesses in just over a year. Reeves increased employer NI in her first budget last October — a decision that drew strong criticism from business leaders.

Blanc warned that removing the NI benefit entirely would impose a meaningful cost on firms: “The actual cost to employers of removing that NI benefit from salary sacrifice is not going to be insignificant.”

Her comments came as Aviva delivered a strong third-quarter update. The FTSE 100 insurer said it now expects to realise £225 million in annual cost savings from its £3.7 billion acquisition of Direct Line — almost double the £125 million previously forecast — by 2028.

Aviva also expects to generate operating profit of £2.2 billion this year, excluding any contribution from Direct Line. That means the company is set to hit its 2026 profit target two years early. It also unveiled new three-year goals, including delivering a return on equity of more than 20% by 2028.

Analysts at Bank of America reiterated their “buy” rating on Aviva, saying they expect the insurer to beat its newly updated financial targets.

Despite the strong guidance, Aviva shares fell 42.5p — down 6.1% — to close at 650p. The stock has risen around 40% since the start of the year, with analysts suggesting that many of the upgrades announced on Thursday had already been priced in by investors.

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Aviva chief warns Reeves that salary sacrifice tax cap would be ‘bad news’ for Britain

There is something exquisitely British about watching a government try to sweet-talk the very people it is about to fleece. Like putting out the good biscuits before the bailiffs arrive.

And so we have Sir Keir Starmer — a man whose natural habitat is somewhere between a Select Committee hearing and an apologetic queue at Pret — inviting the grandees of British business to No 10 for what Downing Street insists on calling an “informal reception”.

NatWest, Sage, Marks & Spencer, Taylor Wimpey, Octopus Energy… all the familiar names trooped dutifully through the famous black door, like polite wedding guests who know full well that the groom is a wrong ’un but have still bought a gift from the list because, well, it’s tradition. And what did they get for their trouble? A drink, a handshake, and the creeping realisation that Rachel Reeves is sharpening her fiscal guillotine for 26 November.

Because let’s be honest: corporate Britain is not stupid. It can smell a tax raid long before it hits. Businesses up and down the country have been braced for this budget ever since Reeves’s first go at the Treasury last year, when she hiked employer national insurance and the minimum wage so aggressively you could practically hear the collective groan from every payroll director in the land. That budget, you’ll remember, destroyed in about nine minutes the painstaking courtship Labour had undertaken in the years after Corbyn — a sort of political couples therapy designed to assure business leaders that yes, the party had changed; no, nobody was coming for their yachts; yes, they could come out from behind the sofa.

Starmer’s reception this week was meant to be a soothing gesture — a warm hug before the cold reality of a £30 billion black hole in the public finances is unveiled. But the whole thing had the atmosphere of a GP offering you a lollipop moments before telling you they’re going to remove your leg “just to be safe”.

What Reeves is reportedly considering next would make even Gordon Brown blush. A manifesto-scrambling rise in income tax (because who needs promises, really?). A full-blown assault on limited liability partnerships (sorry, lawyers; sorry, accountants; most people won’t be sorry at all). And, my personal favourite, a raid on salary-sacrifice pension schemes — those clever little mechanisms businesses use to keep costs down without asking employees to start living on tinned tomatoes.

So yes, the mood in the room was not exactly “Christmas at Liberty”. It was more “annual meeting of people who know the bill is coming but haven’t yet decided who’s paying”.

The tragedy here — and it is a tragedy, in the classic British sense of being entirely foreseeable and yet still somehow depressing — is that Labour really had the business community on side. For a hot minute, Starmer and Reeves were the sensible grown-ups. The ones who wouldn’t crash the economy in a fit of ideological pique. The ones who wouldn’t treat FTSE companies like enemies of the state. The ones who, we were told, “understand how wealth is created”. (And then, three months later, taxed the people who create it.)

But credibility, like a good steak, is hard won and easily ruined. And Starmer’s government appears determined to prod it to death with the sharp end of a policy fork.

The prime minister’s great hope is that business leaders are, at heart, desperate for stability — so desperate that they will swallow any number of tax increases as long as they are announced in complete sentences rather than the fever-dream scribbles of their predecessors in government. There is a degree of truth in this. Business likes predictability. It likes grown-ups. It likes the lights to stay on when it flicks the switch.

But there is a limit to how much “doing your bit” people can be told to do before they start seriously contemplating the joys of Dublin. And Reeves’s recent speech, in which she solemnly informed us all that “each of us must do our bit for the security of our country and the brightness of its future”, felt a bit like being told to wash up someone else’s dishes because “we’re all a family here”.

Downing Street declined to comment on the guest list, naturally, which is Whitehall code for “everyone involved is furious but nobody wants to go first”. But I suspect that behind the forced smiles and the warm white wine, Britain’s top executives were quietly tallying up just how much this government is about to cost them — and whether any of it will actually be worth it.

Because while Starmer may believe that a few canapé-laden evenings can repair the damage, business leaders know better. Trust in politics is not rebuilt with receptions; it is rebuilt with policy that doesn’t change direction every time the wind blows across Horse Guards Parade.

And unless Reeves pulls an economic rabbit out of her red box later this month, the only thing hopping out of No 10 will be Britain’s most mobile — and most taxed — businesses.

Read more:
A canapé and a tax raid: Labour’s new love letter to business

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, integrity is “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.” In theory, it’s a simple word. But in the workplace, it can be one of the hardest qualities to sustain – especially in leadership.

Between urgent decisions, conflicting priorities and day-to-day pressures, how do leaders stay true to their values? How do they balance what’s easy with what’s right – and make integrity part of everyday operations?

At Chubb Fire & Security, integrity is one of our core values. In fact, it’s built into the way we lead. “Win with integrity, together” is one of five guiding principles that shape how we show up for our customers, our colleagues and our communities.

For SME leaders, leading with integrity is more than a personal virtue; it’s a business strategy. Done well, it builds trust, strengthens culture and creates the conditions where teams and businesses thrive.

Why Integrity Matters in Business

When we think of integrity, we often think of character. But in business, integrity has real commercial consequences – for performance, reputation, and resilience.

A 2023 Forbes article1 put it this way: “Integrity is not just a moral compass. It’s a business differentiator.” It fosters trust, credibility and long-term loyalty – all qualities that are essential in high-pressure leadership roles and entrepreneurial environments.

For SMEs in particular, trust is currency. With smaller teams and closer customer relationships, any lapse in integrity is felt more quickly – and often more personally – than in a larger organisation.

Integrity creates consistency. It sets the tone for how people interact, how decisions are made, and how conflict is handled. And when employees trust their leaders to be honest and fair, they’re more likely to stay, engage and give their best.

Chubb’s Approach: Leading with Values Every Day

At Chubb, integrity isn’t a leadership style. It’s part of our culture.

Our value “Win with integrity, together” is more than words on a wall. It shows up in how we collaborate, how we make decisions, and how we empower one another to perform at our best – together.

This is part of our wider philosophy of Building Great Leaders – a belief that everyone is a leader, and everyone deserves a great leader. That means creating an environment where people feel safe to speak up, take accountability and make decisions with confidence.

We don’t expect perfection. But we do expect people to own what they do, think steps ahead and lead with integrity at every level.

Four Ways SME Leaders Can Lead with Integrity

You don’t need a corporate handbook or a values committee to lead with integrity. In fact, the most powerful displays of integrity often happen in the small, everyday moments.

Here are four ways SME leaders can put integrity into practice:

Be Honest, Even When It’s Uncomfortable

Integrity starts with honesty, especially when delivering difficult news or admitting you don’t have all the answers. Avoid overpromising. Communicate with transparency and keep your commitments. If plans change, explain why.

Lead by Example, Not Just Instruction

People follow what leaders do, not just what they say. Your daily behaviour sets the tone for the team. If you expect accountability, model it. If you value collaboration, be seen doing it.

Apply Standards Consistently

One of the quickest ways to erode trust is by making exceptions, especially for senior leaders or long-standing employees. Ensure your rules, policies and recognition are applied fairly. Integrity is about doing the right thing, even when it’s inconvenient.

Welcome Challenge and Invite Feedback

Integrity isn’t about always being right. It’s about being open to feedback and willing to act on it. Create a culture where employees can raise concerns or offer ideas without fear. Then show that their voices lead to action.

How Integrity Strengthens Trust and Culture

Culture is shaped by what leaders reward, tolerate and ignore. If leaders cut corners, others will follow. But when leaders consistently act with integrity (owning mistakes, communicating honestly, and acting fairly) it creates psychological safety and strengthens team cohesion.

For SMEs, where people work closely and often wear multiple hats, this sense of trust is critical. It makes teams more resilient, more collaborative and more loyal.

At Chubb, we’ve seen this first-hand. Leaders who model our values create stronger teams – not just in output, but in how people feel about their work. When integrity is lived, not just talked about, it becomes part of the company’s DNA.

The Bottom Line

Integrity is one of the most powerful qualities a leader can have – and one of the most visible. People notice when leaders show up consistently, tell the truth, admit mistakes and make decisions based on shared values.

For SMEs, leading with integrity builds more than a good reputation. It builds trust, attracts talent and creates long-term cultural strength.

At Chubb, integrity is how we work together, with purpose and accountability. Because when leaders lead with integrity, they don’t just win. They bring others with them.

Read more:
How Leaders Build Trust by Leading with Integrity

The head of one of Britain’s best-known law firms has warned that Rachel Reeves’s reported plan to raise taxes on limited liability partnerships (LLPs) could drive professionals and entrepreneurs out of the UK, undermining London’s status as a global business hub.

James Libson, managing partner of Mishcon de Reya, said proposals to align LLP taxation more closely with standard employment rules risked punishing professionals who take on business risk and contribute significantly to the economy.

“Most people using LLPs are middle-class, upper middle-income people,” Libson said. “It means the attractiveness of living here is diminished. I’m not talking about the millionaires or billionaires — normal people will look for opportunities to work elsewhere.”

The Chancellor is said to be considering measures that would raise the overall tax burden on partnerships, following reports that senior Treasury officials believe the reforms could raise up to £1.9 billion by bringing LLPs in line with employer National Insurance contributions.

However, Libson described the potential changes as “dangerous and potentially destructive”, warning that they would worsen Britain’s brain drain just as rival financial and legal centres were growing more competitive.

“To equate partners and investors who operate through LLP structures as employees is to sell the proposition in completely the wrong way,” he said. “The reason the system works is because these are people investing in their business — they take risk, they put in capital.”

The Treasury has declined to confirm or deny that LLPs are being targeted in the November 26 Budget, though sources told the Financial Times that any increases would be “less severe” than first feared and may include exemptions for partners earning below a certain threshold.

The LLP structure, introduced in 2001, allows professionals to operate as partners rather than employees, offering both flexibility and tax efficiency. According to Companies House, there are now more than 50,000 LLPs across the UK, spanning law, accountancy, architecture, consultancy, and other professional services.

Critics argue that the system gives high earners an unfair advantage, but supporters say it underpins one of Britain’s most globally competitive sectors. A London School of Economics report found that the top 0.1% of taxpayers earned nearly half of all partnership income in 2020.

Libson insists the perception of LLPs as tax shelters for the ultra-wealthy is misleading. “These are not hedge fund billionaires,” he said. “They’re professionals building practices, employing hundreds of people, and keeping Britain competitive in legal and advisory services.”

Mishcon de Reya — founded in 1937 and known for representing Princess Diana in her divorce from the then Prince of Wales — reported £332 million in turnover and £111 million in pre-tax profits last year. The firm now employs more than 1,400 people, including 650 lawyers.

Reflecting a wider trend among professional service firms, Mishcon recently opened offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, joining rivals Addleshaw Goddard and Simmons & Simmons in expanding into the Gulf region, where lighter regulation and tax advantages are attracting international talent.

“With the strategies we are pursuing — private wealth, innovation, disputes — [the UAE] is an absolute hub,” Libson said. “More and more we’ve felt that London’s magnetism has diminished, while other centres of gravity are growing around the world.”

Libson said Mishcon’s immigration practice had seen a marked increase in professionals relocating to the Middle East — a reflection, he argued, of growing frustration with the UK’s tax and regulatory environment.

“From our own internal barometer, we’ve seen very significant traffic to the Gulf,” he said.

The warning comes as economists estimate that Britain’s top 1% of earners now contribute more than 30% of all income tax receipts, making their mobility a key fiscal risk.

Libson added that, while the government’s industrial strategy rightly highlighted professional services as a growth priority, policies targeting partnerships would send the opposite message.

“London is still the greatest city in the world — but the issue, as always, is execution, productivity and cutting through the bureaucracy that holds us back,” he said. “Other countries are doing that really well.”

Mishcon de Reya’s board recently appointed Dame Alison Rose, former NatWest chief executive, as non-executive chair, building on her advisory work in diversity and inclusion. Libson praised her appointment as a signal of the firm’s long-term vision.

“Alison is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “Our diversity push has never been tokenism — it’s about creating an environment where people want to work. It’s a business decision as much as anything else.”

With the Budget just weeks away, City leaders remain anxious over the scale of Reeves’s planned tax rises. For firms like Mishcon de Reya, the outcome could determine whether London remains the beating heart of global professional services — or whether, as Libson warns, “normal people” begin to follow their wealthier clients abroad.

Read more:
Mishcon boss warns Reeves that LLP tax hike risks exodus of professionals

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ reported plan to impose a 20% “exit tax” on the business assets of wealthy individuals leaving the UK has sparked a furious backlash from the financial sector, with critics warning it could drive away entrepreneurs and investors.

The proposed measure — described as a “settling-up charge” — would levy capital gains tax on the holdings of those relocating to low-tax jurisdictions. Treasury insiders reportedly believe it could raise around £2 billion in additional revenue.

But Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and asset management firms, called the proposal “reckless and self-defeating.”

“The government seems determined to make the UK an increasingly unattractive place for wealth creators,” Green said. “The introduction of an exit tax would accelerate the exodus of entrepreneurs, business owners and investors who already feel punished for their success.”

Green warned that the policy would damage Britain’s competitiveness at a critical time and could cost the Treasury more than it raises.

“This policy wouldn’t just fail to raise meaningful revenue; it would destroy confidence, reduce investment and, ultimately, cost the Treasury far more in lost economic activity than it could ever recoup through short-term taxation,” he said.

The firm has already seen a sharp rise in wealthy individuals reassessing their exposure to the UK, he added, amid fears the country is no longer friendly to business or enterprise.

“Investors and business leaders are already viewing the UK with increasing caution. They’re redirecting capital to economies that reward ambition and provide stability. Britain should be working to attract international wealth, not signalling that it intends to penalise it.”

Reeves’ expected Budget later this month comes as the UK faces slowing growth, weak business investment and declining consumer confidence. Analysts have warned that the Chancellor is set to oversee the fastest tax increases in over half a century.

Green argued that adding an “exit charge” to that mix would send a damaging signal to global markets.

“That alone would spook global capital, but combining it with an exit charge would send a message that Britain has given up competing,” he said. “The result would be a sustained erosion of confidence and a steady relocation of capital to rival jurisdictions.”

The deVere chief said the proposal reflects a short-term, politically driven mindset that risks undermining long-term prosperity.

“The abolition of the non-dom regime, rising corporate taxes and the highest personal tax burden in decades have already eroded confidence,” he said. “An exit tax would be the final signal that the UK is no longer open to wealth, investment or aspiration.”

Green urged the Chancellor to focus on policies that attract innovators rather than penalising success.

“Prosperous economies are built on encouraging growth, not constraining ambition. Imposing a departure charge is the economics of retreat,” he said.

He added that while an exit tax might appear politically expedient, it risks a “historic loss of wealth, talent and confidence” as capital moves to rival hubs such as Dubai, Singapore and Switzerland.

“Other financial centres are already benefitting from the UK’s self-inflicted policy drift. The country can’t afford to keep exporting its most productive citizens,” he warned.

Green also cautioned internationally mobile individuals and business owners to review their residency and succession plans before any such policy is enacted.

“This proposal adds urgency for globally active entrepreneurs to seek expert advice before further restrictions or taxes are imposed,” he said.

He concluded: “Instead of chasing those who decide, as is their right, to leave, the focus should be on persuading more to invest — ensuring that Britain remains a place where ambition and enterprise are rewarded, not punished.”

Read more:
Reeves’ ‘exit tax’ plan branded “reckless and self-defeating” by leading wealth adviser

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not usually in the business of tutting at shoes. I’m not the keeper of the brogue, nor the patron saint of patent leather.

But when a man hosts a dinner at his own three-Michelin-starred restaurant to celebrate the newly knighted Sir David Beckham, and turns up in a tuxedo paired with gleaming white trainers — well, I start to wonder if the world hasn’t finally gone mad.

Now, of course, Gordon Ramsay owns the place. If anyone can decide the dress code at a table of his own, it’s the chef-proprietor himself. He can serve pigeon in a paddling pool and wear pyjamas if he likes. But ownership doesn’t equal immunity from taste. There’s a line between “relaxed contemporary cool” and “I’ve given up”. And I’m afraid, Gordon, that night you were teetering perilously close to the latter — in trainers, no less.

What made the spectacle even starker was the company. This wasn’t a boozy mates-only dinner down the King’s Road. It was a black-tie celebration for Beckham’s knighthood — the culmination of a decades-long campaign of service, brand management and quiet self-reinvention. And Sir David, to his eternal credit, turned up looking like a walking Bond franchise: the tux razor-sharp, the shoes mirror-bright, posture immaculate. Even, the now Lady Victoria, never knowingly underdressed, embodied old-school grace. Around the table, guests glimmered in black and silk, the dining room itself a temple of fine formality. Then there was Gordon,  beaming proudly, I’m sure for pone of his closest friends, but looking as if he’d dashed straight from the pass to the party without time to lace up.

Let’s not kid ourselves: trainers with a tux aren’t a bold fashion statement anymore. They’re the lazy man’s rebellion, the sartorial equivalent of mumbling at a job interview. Once upon a time, it was rock stars and artists who broke the rules; now it’s millionaires pretending to be effortless. And in the hallowed dining room of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, where the sauces are reduced to the millisecond and the tablecloths are ironed flatter than the M25, that nonchalance rings hollow.

There’s an old idea that what you wear to dinner says something about how seriously you take the company you’re in. Dress up for the people you respect. Make an effort for the moment. And when that moment is the knighthood of one of Britain’s most famous men, perhaps a pair of Oxfords wouldn’t kill you. Beckham understood that instinctively. Ramsay, alas, looked like he’d mistaken “three-star” for “street-food pop-up”.

I’m not saying we should all resurrect the tailcoat. God knows no one needs more starch in their life. But some occasions, and this was one, still deserve their sense of ceremony. A knighthood isn’t just a social media milestone. It’s the country tipping its hat to a lifetime of excellence, captaining of England, his involvement in the 2012 London Olympics and numerous charities including His Majesty’s Kings Trust (formerly the Princes Trust). The dinner that follows should match that spirit of reverence. If the chef-host can’t be bothered to put on proper shoes, why should anyone else bother to polish their manners?

Of course, Ramsay might argue that he’s a man of modern tastes, that the Michelin world needs loosening up, that formality is for dinosaurs. Maybe. But there’s a world of difference between evolution and erosion. When everything becomes casual, nothing feels special. And part of the allure of fine dining — and indeed of honours, titles, rituals — is that they are special. That they demand something extra of us. A little theatre. A little respect. A little polish.

The irony is that Ramsay, of all people, understands precision. His entire empire is built on it — on the poise of a sauce, the placement of a garnish, the glint of a knife. He’ll bark at a chef for an overcooked scallop, but when it comes to footwear, apparently anything goes. Perhaps he thought the trainers were a cheeky modern touch, a wink to contemporary cool. But against the tableau of gleaming glassware, bow-tied guests and Beckham’s effortless suavity, it just looked … off. Like ketchup on foie gras.

Then again, maybe that’s the point. Maybe Ramsay wanted to telegraph that fine dining is evolving — that even at its summit, the rules are ready to bend. But there’s a danger in bending them too far. Because when even the guardians of refinement decide that effort is optional, the very idea of “special” starts to crumble. And if there’s anywhere that should still demand a bit of theatre,  a bit of occasion,  it’s the dining room of a three-star restaurant celebrating a newly minted knight of the realm.

In the end, this isn’t really about shoes. It’s about symbolism. The Michelin stars, the knighthood, the restaurant, the clothes, all of it speaks a shared language of aspiration. And in that language, trainers say something else entirely. They say: I don’t care that much. And perhaps that’s fine if you’re catching a flight or popping to Waitrose. But when you’re toasting Sir David Beckham under chandeliers, it feels just a bit … cheap.

So, Gordon — you own the restaurant, the name, and the night. But sometimes ownership carries responsibility. And on this occasion, when everyone else rose to meet the grandeur of the moment, your shoes let the side down. The food was I am sure was flawless, the wine divine, the conversation sparkling. But those trainers? They were the only thing in the room that didn’t quite fit.

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Sorry Gordon, whilst you own the restaurant, but trainers with a tux? really?

It’s a curious thing, this sense of waiting for a Budget. For most, it’s an exercise in mild anxiety – a check to see whether wine duty is up again or whether you can still afford to fill the tank. But for business owners in London right now, the wait for Rachel Reeves’ first full Budget on 26 November feels less like a nervous twitch and more like a death row countdown.

Charlie Gilkes, who co-founded Inception Group and runs some of London’s most imaginative bars – Mr Fogg’s, Bunga Bunga, the kind of places where post-pandemic optimism briefly came alive again – summed it up with alarming accuracy: “It feels like waiting on death row, waiting until the very last moment to let us know whether she will grant a stay of execution.”

And you can see his point. Reeves’ Budget, which has been rescheduled, delayed, and wrapped in more mystery than a Bond villain’s plot, is arriving under the kind of cloud that usually means someone’s about to pay – and it’ll probably be London.

For weeks now, the rumours have been circulating through Westminster corridors like wasps around a picnic: a wealth tax here, a mansion tax there, a shake-up of partnerships, a business rates “super multiplier”. Each idea lands like another nail being gently tapped into the coffin of the capital’s competitiveness.

The problem is not that the government wants to raise money – everyone knows the country’s finances look like a student overdraft in week one of term. The problem is who they’re going to shake down to do it. Because when politicians say “we all need to contribute,” what they often mean is “London can pay.”

Let’s put this in perspective. London generates £618 billion a year in GDP – roughly 22 per cent of the UK total. Add the South East, and you’re close to half. The capital and its surrounds contribute nearly 30 per cent of all income tax and more than 30 per cent of business rates. It’s the engine room of the UK economy, the bit that keeps the lights on while politicians from every party take turns kicking it in the shins.

And yet, Reeves’ team seem ready to push through reforms that will disproportionately batter the capital’s businesses. The “super multiplier” for properties with rateable values over £500,000 – a neat way of saying “we’ll tax your London office more because it looks expensive” – could mean rates as high as 58p in the pound.

To call that punitive would be an understatement. It’s an electric shock to every business with a W1 postcode. It doesn’t matter that these companies are already shelling out eye-watering sums for rent, staffing and utilities – the Treasury still wants its slice, preferably before the till opens.

David Jones of Avison Young pointed out the obvious but crucial truth: business rates are a direct overhead. They don’t come out of profit; they come out of existence. You pay them whether you’re making money or not. It’s the fiscal equivalent of being asked to chip in for your own executioner’s new axe.

And then there’s the wealth tax carousel. Reeves’ team is said to be looking at removing the capital gains exemption on homes worth more than £1.5 million. That might sound like it targets the super-rich, but in London that’s not a mansion – it’s a family home with a kitchen extension and a decent postcode. Roughly 11 per cent of London properties sit above that threshold, compared to 2 per cent elsewhere.

James Evans of Douglas & Gordon hit the nail on the head: “In many neighbourhoods, £1.5 million is far from a mansion.” Quite. It’s a three-bed terrace in Clapham with peeling paintwork and a leaking skylight. If that’s “wealth,” then Britain’s definition of luxury needs a serious reality check.

Add to that the possible 1 per cent annual levy on homes over £2 million, and you’ve got a policy cocktail that would make even Mr Fogg wince. These aren’t just taxes; they’re deterrents – neon signs flashing “London: Closed for Business” to anyone thinking of investing, relocating, or even staying put.

And let’s not forget the white-collar crowd. Reeves is reportedly eyeing changes to how partnership income is taxed, which could hit the capital’s law firms and consultancies squarely in the solar plexus. Partners who earn seven figures might not be your first sympathy vote, but when they leave – and they will leave, because Dubai, New York and Singapore all smile more kindly on their tax codes – the ripple effect will hit everything from sandwich shops to spin studios.

Charlie Gilkes isn’t just speaking for himself. He’s speaking for a city that’s been through hell these past few years – from lockdowns that gutted hospitality to staffing crises, inflation, rent hikes and endless policy tinkering. What London needs is stability, predictability, a sense that the rules won’t be rewritten every six months. What it’s getting instead is a Treasury that seems to view its success as a problem to be solved.

It’s a funny kind of masochism that defines our politics: punish the productive, milk the metropolitan, and then act surprised when the rest of the country runs dry.

London doesn’t want special treatment. It just wants recognition that when you squeeze the capital, the whole of Britain feels the pressure. The trains built in Derby, the fabrics woven in Huddersfield, the wine poured in Soho – they’re all part of the same chain. Cut off the top, and the bottom collapses.

So yes, as Reeves sharpens her red pen and business owners sit counting the days until the 26th, it does feel like waiting on death row. But perhaps, just perhaps, the Chancellor will look up at the gallows, take a deep breath, and decide that execution isn’t quite the growth strategy Britain needs right now.

Until then, we wait – strapped in, chin up, praying for a last-minute reprieve.

Read more:
Waiting on Reeves: London entrepreneurs face the gallows

When I founded Invicta Vita, I knew that building an exceptional team would be the cornerstone of our success. What I didn’t anticipate was how fundamentally my thinking about hiring would evolve.

Today, I find myself challenging the very assumptions that once guided my recruitment decisions, particularly around age and career stage. The question that now drives our approach is simple yet profound: what truly matters when building teams for tomorrow’s challenges?

The traditional hiring playbook has long favoured a predictable trajectory. Fresh graduates for energy and moldability. Mid-career professionals for immediate expertise. Senior hires for leadership. It’s neat, linear, and increasingly obsolete. In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, this conventional wisdom isn’t just limiting, it’s leaving extraordinary talent untapped and organisations vulnerable to the very disruption they claim to be preparing for.

Yet we’re facing a paradox that should alarm every business leader: thousands of highly skilled graduates remain unemployed or underemployed, their potential squandered whilst organisations complain about talent shortages. We’re failing an entire generation of talented individuals who have invested years in their education, often accruing significant debt, only to find doors closed because they lack “experience.” This isn’t just a social issue, it’s an economic imperative and a missed opportunity of staggering proportions.

The case for graduates has never been stronger. Beyond their digital fluency and fresh perspectives, they represent untapped potential at a critical moment. They enter organisations without preconceived notions about “how things should be done.” They question legacy processes not from cynicism but from genuine curiosity. When paired with experienced mentors, this questioning becomes a catalyst for innovation rather than disruption for its own sake. I’ve watched graduate hires identify inefficiencies that seasoned team members had long stopped noticing, simply because they approached problems with fresh eyes.

Moreover, today’s graduates bring capabilities that previous generations simply didn’t possess. They’re conversant with AI tools, comfortable with rapid technological change, and often possess a global perspective shaped by diverse educational experiences and digital connectivity. They understand emerging consumer behaviours because they are those consumers. Dismissing this insight because it comes wrapped in inexperience is strategic shortsightedness.

We also have a responsibility here that extends beyond business advantage. Every graduate we employ becomes a taxpayer, a consumer, and a contributor to economic growth. Every graduate we overlook risks becoming disillusioned, their skills atrophying, their potential diminishing. The social and economic cost of a lost generation of talent cannot be overstated. As business leaders, we have both the power and the obligation to break this cycle.

I’ve witnessed this firsthand at Invicta Vita. Some of our most innovative solutions have come from graduate hires working alongside career changers who brought unconventional perspectives to familiar problems. Our most adaptable team members have included fresh graduates who absorbed new methodologies instantly, as well as professionals in their fifties who embraced new technologies with enthusiasm that surprised even themselves. Meanwhile, we’ve seen recent graduates demonstrate strategic thinking that belied their years. These experiences have taught me that the intersection of diverse experiences, ages, and career stages isn’t just beneficial, it’s essential for organisational resilience.

Career changers represent another underutilised talent pool worth championing. These individuals have made conscious decisions to redirect their professional lives, often at considerable personal cost. What they bring isn’t just transferable skills, it’s proven adaptability, risk tolerance, and a hunger to learn that can’t be taught. I’ve seen former teachers become exceptional project managers, their classroom experience translating seamlessly into stakeholder management.

Midlife hires deserve particular attention because they challenge our most persistent biases. The notion that professionals over forty-five are somehow less adaptable or tech-savvy is not just offensive, it’s demonstrably false. What this demographic offers is invaluable: pattern recognition across economic cycles, emotional intelligence honed through decades of complex relationships, and often a level of commitment unencumbered by the early-career job-hopping that characterises younger cohorts. They’ve seen trends come and go, giving them the perspective to distinguish genuine transformation from passing fads.

The real magic happens when these groups work together. Intergenerational teams create a dynamic where learning becomes multidirectional. Graduate hires reverse-mentor senior colleagues on emerging technologies and digital trends. Experienced professionals provide context that prevents reinventing wheels or repeating historical mistakes. Career changers ask the outsider questions that challenge groupthink. This cognitive diversity isn’t merely nice to have, research consistently shows it drives better decision-making and innovation.

Building such teams requires intentional effort. Job descriptions must focus on capabilities and potential rather than arbitrary years of experience. Interview processes need to assess learning agility, problem-solving approaches, and cultural alignment rather than checking boxes against predetermined career paths. We’ve moved toward skills-based assessments that reveal how candidates think rather than simply what they know. For graduates especially, we look for curiosity, resilience, and the ability to collaborate, qualities that predict success far better than prior work experience.

Creating an inclusive environment for diverse career stages also demands attention to organisational culture. Flexible working arrangements matter differently across life stages. Graduates might value structured learning opportunities and mentorship programmes, while midlife professionals might prioritise work-life integration. Career development can’t follow a one-size-fits-all model when team members have vastly different starting points and aspirations.

The business case extends beyond innovation and adaptability. Organisations that embrace age and stage diversity position themselves to better understand and serve diverse customer bases. They build succession planning resilience by avoiding the cliff-edge risk of cohort retirement. They enhance their employer brand in markets where talent scarcity increasingly trumps talent selection. And by giving graduates that crucial first opportunity, we create loyalty and shape professionals who will drive our industries forward for decades to come.

Looking ahead, the organisations that will thrive aren’t those with the youngest teams, the most experienced teams, or even the most credentialed teams. They’ll be the ones that recognise talent as a mosaic rather than a monolith. The future belongs to businesses brave enough to look beyond the CV’s chronology and see the capabilities, curiosity, and commitment that transcend age and stage. It belongs to those willing to invest in graduates when they need us most.

The question isn’t whether you can afford to embrace this diversity in hiring. It’s whether you can afford not to.

Read more:
Why we must give graduates a chance: Building teams that blend youth with experience

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, must use the Autumn Budget to bolster the UK’s creative industries if she is serious about delivering economic growth, according to leading audit, tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg.

Partner Mandy Girder said the creative industries — from film and music to digital media and design — remain one of the UK’s most dynamic growth engines, contributing around £124 billion to the economy in 2023, according to government data.

“The UK’s creative industry is an important part of the economy,” Girder said. “But to achieve Labour’s growth agenda, there needs to be more targeted support for freelancers in the media industry.”

Freelancers make up the backbone of the UK’s creative workforce — yet many struggle with irregular income, delayed payments, and limited access to financial support between contracts.

Girder said an emergency support fund for freelancers “to stay afloat when between jobs or awaiting late payments” would provide immediate relief and help retain skilled professionals in the sector.

But she added that structural change was just as vital as short-term support.

“Preventing these cashflow issues in the first place would go a long way,” she said. “The government should legislate creative industry-specific prompt payment rules, ensuring freelancers are paid within a reasonable timeframe — similar to the protections already in place for government suppliers.”

Girder called for the reintroduction of tax reliefs for freelancers, similar to those provided during the pandemic, to help independent creatives offset work-related costs such as software, equipment, and studio space.

“This would help small but established freelancers manage expenses and stay productive,” she said. “It should be coupled with increased or more permanent creative industry reliefs.”

She also proposed start-up grants for graduates and emerging professionals to help bridge the gap between university and employment.

“Some young people spend years honing their skills only to find it incredibly difficult to break into paid work,” Girder said. “A start-up grant could give them a lifeline to launch their careers and contribute to the economy.”

Girder said that while regional support schemes in the West Midlands, North East and Wales have proven effective, similar funds should be expanded across the UK to build a “national safety net” for creative freelancers.

She also urged the Treasury to increase the budget for the Global Screen Fund, which helps promote UK film and television exports abroad.

“More regional and national funding streams would unlock creative potential outside London and ensure the UK remains globally competitive,” she said.

Freelancers say slow and inconsistent payments remain one of the biggest challenges facing the industry.

Neil Kerber, an award-winning cartoonist, described how late payments disrupt livelihoods and morale: “It would be very helpful if a freelancer such as me could be paid quickly or at least on time, rather than finding out weeks down the line that my invoice still needs to be authorised — then forgotten about for another eight weeks,” he said.

“I once waited five months for a significant invoice to be paid. Prompt payment rules would encourage businesses to handle invoices efficiently and give creatives much-needed backup when chasing overdue payments.”

The UK’s creative sector is a vital export, a cultural powerhouse, and a proven driver of growth. But as Labour seeks to deliver on its promise of economic expansion, Girder said protecting the sector’s freelancers — who make up a significant proportion of the workforce — must be part of the plan.

“This is an industry that delivers jobs, innovation and global influence,” she said. “But to sustain that success, the people who power it — freelancers and small creative businesses — need stability, fair pay, and tangible government support.”

Read more:
Supporting the creative industry in Autumn Budget will increase growth

Scottish finance expert Craig Alexander Rattray has called for stronger government protections for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) involved in legal disputes with large corporations, following his own trademark battle with billion-dollar accounting firm Xero.

Rattray, founder of the financial education programme Know Your Numbers®, claims that Xero’s use of a name “strikingly similar” to his registered trademark has exposed how difficult — and expensive — it is for smaller businesses to defend their intellectual property.

Legal advice has suggested that Rattray has a strong case, but with estimated litigation costs of up to £750,000, he says most SMEs would find it impossible to pursue action.

“What’s the point in a trademark if it costs so much to defend it?” he said. “We did everything by the book to protect our brand, but the system isn’t set up to support smaller businesses when this kind of thing happens.”

Rattray is urging the government to explore simplified legal recourse, subsidised support, and faster dispute resolution for small businesses defending intellectual property rights.

“Small businesses do the right thing — they build something unique, register it, and follow the rules,” he said. “But when a big company with deep pockets comes along and uses something similar, we’re priced out of the system that’s supposed to protect us.”

“We need a better framework — whether that’s subsidised legal aid, streamlined mediation, or a dedicated fund to help SMEs enforce their rights. Otherwise, what’s the point of registering your IP if only large corporates can afford to defend it?”

The dispute centres on Xero’s “Know Your Numbers” initiative, launched in Australia and New Zealand earlier this year and recently rolled out in the UK. Rattray holds the registered UK trademark for “Know Your Numbers®” in the field of financial education and training.

He established the brand four years ago, building a trusted financial education platform that helps thousands of small business owners understand their finances through workshops, podcasts, video content and two published books.

“We’ve built a recognised brand that makes a real difference to business owners,” Rattray said. “So when we saw a billion-dollar company use the same name for a similar initiative, we were taken aback — especially given the values they claim to promote.”

Following legal correspondence, Xero acknowledged Rattray’s cease-and-desist letter and made a minor adjustment — changing its branding to “Xero’s Know Your Numbers” — but no agreement has been reached.

While Rattray remains confident in his legal position, he says the cost barrier effectively blocks smaller firms from pursuing justice.

“Xero positions itself as a champion of small business,” he said. “But this feels less like healthy competition and more like being sidelined by a company with far greater resources.

They’re offering a free programme under the same name, and that directly affects what we’ve worked so hard to build.”

A spokesperson for Xero said: “I’m afraid we are not able to comment on that matter right now.”

Rattray’s experience highlights a broader challenge facing SMEs in protecting intellectual property against global corporations. Business groups and legal experts have long warned that complex, costly trademark disputes are deterring entrepreneurs from enforcing their rights.

As the government continues to promote entrepreneurship and innovation, Rattray believes IP protection must form part of a wider pro-SME agenda.

“This isn’t just about one business,” he said. “It’s about protecting thousands of small business owners who do the right thing but can’t afford to fight back when big companies overstep.”

Read more:
Finance expert calls for stronger government support to protect SMEs in legal disputes

It’s not often you see a supermarket make national news for not letting someone work for free. Usually the outrage runs in the other direction—“greedy corporations exploiting unpaid labour” and so on.

But today’s piece in The Telegraph about Waitrose and Tom Boyd, a 27-year-old man with severe autism, has managed to flip that script entirely. And in doing so, it has revealed something rather telling about the way big companies like to wrap themselves in the language of “inclusion” while quietly stripping the humanity out of it.

Tom, by all accounts, was a model volunteer. For four years, nine hours a week, he stacked shelves at the Cheadle Hulme branch. He turned up on time, was loved by staff, and—most importantly—he belonged. His mum, Frances, says he’d given more than six hundred hours of his life to that store. That’s not a “trial shift” or a “placement”. That’s a commitment longer than most marriages. And then, the moment she dared ask if he could be paid, Waitrose said no, and shut the whole thing down.

Now, if you’ve ever dealt with a big corporate HR department, you can almost hear the cogs whirring. Alarm bells, legal risk, safeguarding, health and safety. Someone in Bracknell probably got a “risk alert” email saying “URGENT: volunteer exceeding hours threshold, potential classification as employee.” So they did what corporates always do when confronted with something messy, human and potentially emotional: they pulled the plug.

This, I think, is what people mean when they talk about “the system”. It’s not some faceless cabal—it’s a spreadsheet somewhere, with a column that says “non-employees doing employee work = bad optics.” It’s the reflexive desire to tidy away anything that doesn’t fit the model. And in doing so, they managed to break the heart of a man who, according to his mother, only ever wanted to contribute—to belong.

Waitrose insists it’s investigating. They issue the usual boilerplate: “We work hard to be an inclusive employer… we partner with charities… we make reasonable adjustments…” All very fine. But if you need a PR statement to convince people you’re kind, you’ve already lost.

A Question of Value

The uncomfortable truth is that Tom Boyd was doing exactly what the supermarket assistant job description says: keeping the shelves full, products in the right place, the aisles tidy. The difference is that he wasn’t getting £12.40 an hour for it. He wasn’t even asking for that—his family said they’d accept two hours a week of paid work. Just something. Recognition. A sense that his contribution mattered.

But Waitrose couldn’t find room for that in the model. Apparently, you can sell “Essential Waitrose” beans at £1.20 but can’t accommodate an autistic man who’s been giving you free labour for years.

The irony is painful. In an age where every corporate press release bangs on about diversity, equity and inclusion, here’s a man who lived the spirit of inclusion far more genuinely than any policy ever could. He didn’t need a “neurodiversity awareness” training session; he needed a job. And the company, instead of seeing an opportunity to make good on its lofty slogans, treated him like a potential liability.

Waitrose isn’t uniquely wicked here. This is modern corporate Britain all over: risk-averse, image-obsessed, allergic to emotion. Somewhere along the way, kindness got corporatised. It’s been turned into a metric, a compliance box. “Inclusion” is a PowerPoint slide. “Compassion” is a campaign hashtag. And when an actual human being like Tom comes along—real, awkward, imperfect—they don’t know what to do with him.

So they hide behind “process”. They quote “policy”. And they convince themselves that they’re doing the right thing because the equality legislation file says so. The result? A man who once found purpose in stacking tins of tomatoes now sits at home, bewildered, while the store he loved continues to peddle organic quinoa and ethical olive oil under the banner of good living.

It didn’t have to be like this. Imagine the alternative headline: “Waitrose creates first supported employment role for man with autism.” Imagine the PR gold. The viral posts. The outpouring of goodwill. A small, practical act of inclusion, instead of the cold bureaucratic one we got.

I used to be associated with the UK’s first new-build dedicated school for children and young adults on the Autism spectrum, so I speak with experience when I say that there was a dozen different ways that Waitrose could have handled this and the way that they have just does not hold a candle to their so-called John Lewis Partnership, ‘partner’ benefits, which does include such things as paid parental leave and support for working families.

They could have given Tom a badge. A payslip. A Christmas card signed by the team. They could have said: “Tom, you’re one of us.” Instead, they told his mum the store was being “cleaned” so he wouldn’t be upset when they sent him away. The cruelty of that euphemism—“cleaned”—is almost Dickensian. It’s the kind of lie you tell a child about a dead pet.

This story touches something deeper than corporate policy. It’s about the meaning of work itself. For many of us, a job isn’t just about money. It’s about structure, community, identity. For someone like Tom, that’s magnified a hundredfold. The act of showing up, being useful, being part of something—that’s dignity. And we’ve built a world where that sort of quiet dignity has no line on the balance sheet.

Frances Boyd’s heartbreak is palpable not because her son was denied pay, but because he was denied belonging. She knows that his “limited language” doesn’t mean limited feeling. She knows how much it mattered to him to have colleagues, a uniform, a role. And she knows that behind the green aprons and organic lemons, there’s a company that forgot what kindness looks like when it isn’t printed on a marketing brochure.

I don’t think Waitrose meant harm. That’s the saddest part. They thought they were doing the “proper thing.” The compliant thing. But doing the proper thing isn’t always doing the right thing. Sometimes decency requires bending a rule, writing a small cheque, taking a risk.

They told The Telegraph: “We are sorry to hear of Tom’s story, and whilst we cannot comment on individual cases, we are investigating as a priority.”

Tom Boyd’s story is a reminder that business isn’t about policies—it’s about people. It’s about the small acts that don’t make the quarterly report but define a company’s soul. Waitrose, for all its premium polish and “inclusive employer” copywriting, has shown us what happens when compassion meets compliance—and compliance wins.

If this is what “doing the right thing” looks like in 2025, maybe we all need to ask whether the moral till’s coming up short.

Read more:
Waitrose’s kindness gap: how a supermarket lost its humanity

Former Deputy Prime Minister Sir Nick Clegg has warned that the current wave of valuations across the artificial intelligence sector is “crackers”, arguing that many AI businesses have yet to demonstrate viable paths to profitability despite the billions pouring into machine learning.

Speaking at The Times Tech Summit, Clegg said that even the world’s leading AI firms — including so-called “hyperscalers” developing large-scale models — are struggling to show how their capital expenditure will translate into sustainable returns.

“I think there’s certainly a correction coming in valuations,” he said. “These valuations do seem pretty crackers. I don’t see any business model yet, even of the leading AI hyperscalers, that can recoup that capital expenditure. Some of the AI labs that don’t have a particularly good business model will be very exposed in a market correction.”

Clegg’s comments add to growing concerns from economists and regulators that the AI boom may be inflating a bubble similar to the dotcom era. The International Monetary Fund’s chief economist recently drew parallels to the early 2000s internet crash, which wiped $5 trillion from markets, while the Bank of England has cautioned against a potential “sudden correction” in AI-related valuations.

Investors have poured tens of billions into foundation model developers and AI infrastructure providers, betting on long-term dominance in generative and enterprise applications. But analysts warn that high compute costs, slow commercial deployment and unclear monetisation models are creating tension between hype and profitability.

Clegg, who stepped down this year as Meta’s president for global affairs after six years with the company, also used his appearance to criticise Britain’s heavy dependence on American technology infrastructure.

“I think it’s pretty difficult to assert anything other than that we are a vassal state of American technology,” he said. “We are wholly dependent on every level of the stack for technology from a country where the geostrategic interests are no longer aligned in the same way they have been for the last 30 years.”

He warned that the UK’s lack of domestic AI infrastructure and homegrown capability left it in a “perilous state”, particularly amid widening political rifts between the United States and Europe.

Clegg’s intervention reflects a wider unease in Silicon Valley and global markets as AI development enters its first period of scrutiny since the 2022–23 hype cycle. While some companies — including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind — continue to secure massive funding rounds, investors are beginning to demand clearer paths to revenue growth and operational sustainability.

Analysts expect 2026 to mark a turning point for the sector, with a likely market correction separating commercially resilient players from speculative bets. For now, Clegg’s warning serves as a reminder that even amid rapid innovation, the AI gold rush may be running ahead of economic reality.

Read more:
Nick Clegg: AI company valuations are ‘crackers’ and ripe for correction

It was one of those small domestic moments that tells you everything you need to know about the modern British service industry. I was visiting my parents, both octogenarians, both long past the stage of bothering to shop around for anything,  when an envelope from the AA thudded onto the doormat. My mother opened it with the slight suspicion that all letters now require, only to find the annual renewal notice for their breakdown cover.

“Two hundred and sixty pounds thirty-eight,” she said, frowning at the figure as if it were a medical diagnosis. “Though that’s apparently cheaper than last year – it was £280.25 – and they’ve given us a discount of £107.25.” She seemed reassured, which is precisely how the AA likes it.

Then my eye caught a line in bold type: ‘Thank you for your 64 years of loyalty’.

Sixty-four years! That’s longer than most marriages, and certainly longer than any of the call centre staff at AA Insurance have been alive. My stepfather has been a paying customer since the Beatles were still playing in Hamburg. If loyalty were a virtue the AA truly valued, he’d have a gold card, a free tow truck, and a man in a yellow jacket stationed permanently outside the house.

But no. The letter was a masterpiece of corporate doublespeak – a thank you note wrapped around a quiet mugging. £260.38 for a service that, as it turns out, could be had for a third of the price if you knew where to look.

Being the dutiful son (and, frankly, unable to resist a little consumer sleuthing), I fired up the laptop. Three minutes on the AA’s own website later, I had a quote for exactly the same cover: £97.64. “Introductory offer,” it said. “Full price £162.43.”

So, £97.64 for a new member, or £260.38 for a customer of sixty-four years. You don’t need a degree in behavioural economics to see what’s going on here. The so-called “discount” on the renewal was a magician’s trick: look at this £107 off! – while your wallet quietly disappears.

It’s a swindle dressed in the polite language of British customer service. And my parents, like so many others of their generation, would have paid it. Because that’s what loyal customers do. They trust. They assume that six decades of prompt payment and polite correspondence entitles them to fairness. But in the world of modern subscriptions and annual renewals, loyalty isn’t rewarded, it’s monetised.

The British have always had a sentimental attachment to loyalty. We like to think that staying with the same insurer, bank or utility company means something. It’s a vestige of that post-war mindset where you had your man from the Pru, your chap at the bank, and your account with the AA. You stuck with them and they looked after you.

But that social contract has long since been ripped up. Today, loyalty is treated as a sign of weakness. Companies like the AA rely on inertia,  on the quiet assumption that most customers, especially the elderly, will simply renew whatever number appears on the letter.

Meanwhile, the marketing department pours its energy into wooing the new, the fickle, the flighty, those who’ll take their “introductory discount” for a year, cancel at renewal, and start again under another email address. The whole business model has become a revolving door of introductory offers and loyalty penalties.

It’s not just the AA, of course. Every industry plays the same game. Broadband providers, insurers, even the streaming platforms. The longer you stay, the more you pay. It’s a perverse inversion of what loyalty once meant. It’s like being charged extra for ordering the same pint every night at your local.

What’s really galling is how clever it all is. The renewal letters are written to sound reassuring, trustworthy, a little paternal even. They thank you for your custom, list your “discounts”, and refer vaguely to “enhanced cover” you probably never asked for. They hope you’ll glance at the total, shrug, and write the cheque.

In my parents’ case, it was only luck, or filial nosiness, that stopped them being charged nearly triple what the policy was worth. And there’s something morally wrong about that. It’s one thing to overcharge the inattentive; quite another to quietly exploit a generation that built your business in the first place.

Imagine if the AA sent out a letter saying: “Dear Mr X, as one of our longest-standing members, we’re delighted to offer you the same price we give to new customers.” Now that would be loyalty. But of course, that would mean voluntarily surrendering profit. And in the boardroom logic of today’s Britain, that’s heresy.

There’s a wider moral here for all businesses, especially those that like to boast about their heritage. True loyalty is built on mutual respect, not on tricking your oldest customers into overpaying.

We’re entering an era where trust is the scarcest commodity. Consumers are savvier, angrier, and far less forgiving than they used to be. Social media ensures that one story of a pensioner being overcharged can go viral in hours. And yet, the temptation to milk existing customers remains irresistible – it’s easy revenue, and it rarely makes the news.

But brands that behave this way are mortgaging their reputation for short-term gain. Because once people cotton on, as they inevitably do, the damage is irreversible. Sixty-four years of loyalty can vanish in sixty-four seconds.

In the end, I cancelled my parents’ renewal and signed them up anew. The process took less time than boiling the kettle. My mother was delighted. My stepfather, ever the gentleman, just shook his head. “So much for loyalty,” he said.

Quite. The AA may get them back on the road when the car breaks down, but when it comes to customer loyalty, it’s the company itself that’s stranded on the hard shoulder – hazard lights flashing, engine sputtering, wondering where all its good will went.

We asked the AA for a response and an AA spokesperson said: “Our pricing reflects the service offered. The new member price is discounted, but doesn’t provide the same member benefits.

“We would welcome the chance to talk to this member to look at their renewal and see what they are comparing it to online.” My response to  this, is sorry AA, but it is exactly the same service for exactly three times the cost.

Read more:
The AA’s loyalty problem: sixty-four years and still taken for a ride

Leading AI and tax specialists have warned that the government’s failure to reform the UK’s tax system for the age of automation could trigger what one expert calls a “fiscal collapse engineered by the Treasury itself.”

Ahead of the November Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces an unprecedented balancing act: investing billions in artificial intelligence to boost growth, while preventing AI-driven automation from hollowing out the country’s tax base.

The UK currently relies heavily on income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs), which together account for more than 40 per cent of government revenues. But as AI rapidly automates tasks in customer service, accountancy, law and software engineering, experts say the result could be a shrinking workforce — and a shrinking tax take.

Colette Mason, author and AI systems architect at Clever Clogs AI, said that while AI could boost productivity, it also poses a structural risk to the fiscal system.

“Both the OECD and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have shown that companies get significant tax breaks for automation equipment while paying heavy National Insurance on human workers,” she said.

“We’ve built a system that financially punishes employment and rewards replacement. That’s not innovation policy — that’s fiscal self-harm.

“If the Government fails to act, they won’t just create an unstable society. Get AI wrong, and the Treasury will engineer its own fiscal collapse.”

Mason argued that the UK’s tax model must be redesigned to capture AI-driven wealth and reward businesses that use technology to augment, rather than replace, human work.

“The question isn’t whether to reform the tax system for AI. It’s whether we do it strategically now, or desperately later when the damage is done.”

Luke James, tax director at Gravitate Accounting, said the Treasury’s dependence on income-based taxation had become a long-term vulnerability.

“Income tax and National Insurance now account for around 42 per cent of receipts, up from 36 per cent two decades ago. As AI reshapes the workforce, this base will erode — and marginal rate rises can’t fix it.”

James said an “AI levy” might provide a short-term revenue patch but warned that poorly designed taxes could stifle innovation and SME growth.

“Future frameworks should reward human-augmenting technologies and be paired with investment in skills, infrastructure, and retraining,” he added.

“As wealth concentration grows, balancing capital and corporate taxation will be vital to fund public services sustainably. This demands coordinated international action to prevent tax base erosion and protect competitiveness.”

Mitali Deypurkaystha, chief executive of Impact Icon AI, said too many companies were “outsourcing accountability” to consultants promising efficiency gains without assessing the human cost.

“Businesses get tax breaks for automation while paying heavy NI on people. That’s backwards,” she said.

“If your AI consultant talks only about time saved and profits — not your people or culture — ask yourself if that’s a long-term partner. When you cut roles without reinvesting freed-up capacity, you’re eroding your own future.”

She warned that removing entry-level roles could “cripple succession pipelines,” adding: “Who will be your future leaders if AI eliminates junior hiring? Build AI that assists, not replaces. Think human-first, not tech-first.”

Tony Redondo, founder of Cosmos Currency Exchange, said the speed of the AI revolution meant the Treasury could not afford to delay reform.

“Gradual change over 20 years allows adaptation. But AI’s transformation is happening in five to ten — it demands urgent action,” he said.

Redondo rejected the idea of a “robot tax” as “administratively unworkable”, warning it could push capital offshore.

“How do you value AI’s labour-equivalent? Aggressive profit levies risk capital flight to low-tax jurisdictions,” he said. “A pragmatic middle ground is to broaden the corporate tax base to capture digital services, modestly raise capital gains and dividend taxes, and strengthen enforcement.”

Reeves faces a growing policy dilemma: how to fund the public sector sustainably in a world of falling payrolls, while encouraging the innovation the UK needs to compete globally.

As AI supercharges productivity but undermines traditional tax flows, economists warn that the government must modernise the fiscal framework before it breaks.

As Mason put it: “We’re standing on the edge of an automation boom — and the longer we wait to rebuild the tax base, the steeper the fall will be.”

Read more:
November Budget: “Get AI wrong and the Treasury will engineer its own fiscal collapse”

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, risks fuelling inflation and damaging small business growth if she reduces the VAT registration threshold in the Autumn Budget, according to leading audit, tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg.

The warning comes amid growing speculation that the Treasury is considering lowering the current £90,000 VAT threshold in a bid to raise revenue and bring more small businesses into the tax system.

However, Gabby Donald, a partner at Blick Rothenberg, said that such a move would be “immediately inflationary”, forcing thousands of small firms to raise prices and burdening them with complex new compliance requirements.

“Despite advocacy from some think tanks, the Chancellor must not reduce the VAT threshold in the Autumn Budget,” Donald said. “The initial impact would be inflationary as more businesses become obliged to charge 20% VAT on top of any price increases to cover their additional compliance costs.”

She added that consumer-facing sectors — including hospitality, personal services, trades, and the creative industries — would be hit hardest.

Donald said the argument that lowering the VAT threshold would drive economic growth was “far from clear-cut”.

“A sudden, material reduction in the current £90,000 VAT threshold would bring large numbers of small businesses into the scope of quite a complicated tax,” she said. “The impact of higher prices on consumer spending is likely to hit business profitability and, in turn, investment and employment.”

Lowering the threshold could also have the opposite effect on productivity, Donald warned, as smaller firms already operating on tight margins would struggle with new administrative costs and the need to manage cashflow around VAT payments.

“Reducing the threshold is unlikely to yield a significant increase in the tax take for the Government,” she said.

According to HMRC’s latest VAT statistics, more than 77% of the total VAT revenue of £168 billion in 2023–24 came from large businesses with annual turnovers above £10 million. By contrast, companies with turnovers below £150,000 contributed only about £3.9 billion in total.

“If the threshold was reduced materially, greater demands would be placed upon HMRC, but very little would be gained fiscally,” Donald said.

Blick Rothenberg said comparisons with other economies — often cited by advocates of VAT reform — were misleading.

“Many of the think tanks and academics that favour bringing the threshold down significantly or removing it altogether often talk about the benefits seen in smaller countries like New Zealand,” Donald said.

“But the UK economy and VAT system differ significantly from New Zealand, which operates a much less complex Goods and Services Tax (GST) system, and has far fewer registered businesses.”

New Zealand, with a population of just 5.3 million, has a small business ecosystem that is vastly different from the UK’s, where 2.7 million companies are VAT-registered and would face widespread administrative disruption if the policy were implemented.

While some economists have argued that the high VAT threshold disincentivises business expansion — with small firms deliberately capping turnover to avoid registration — Blick Rothenberg said the evidence for cutting the threshold in a large, diverse economy like the UK was weak.

“While there is some evidence that the current threshold inhibits growth, the case for a drastic reduction in a large economy like the UK’s is far from proven,” Donald said. “To implement this type of change quickly would be an extremely bold experiment.”

The comments come as the Chancellor faces pressure to find new revenue sources without breaching Labour’s self-imposed fiscal rules ahead of the Autumn Budget.

Analysts said a cut to the VAT threshold might appeal politically by appearing to target tax avoidance among microbusinesses — but warned it would almost certainly backfire by raising prices, increasing red tape, and hitting consumer demand.

Donald concluded: “Lowering the VAT threshold may sound like a simple fix, but it risks being an own goal for the Treasury. The short-term revenue boost would be outweighed by inflationary pressure, lower consumer spending, and reduced investment from small businesses that form the backbone of the UK economy.”

Read more:
Cutting the VAT threshold would fuel inflation, warns Blick Rothenberg

Japanese investors have poured almost £118 million into Greater Manchester over the past year, in a fresh sign of the region’s growing international profile — but business leaders say Whitehall must match that confidence with long-term support for regional growth.

New figures show a surge in Japanese investment in the North West, led by companies such as Astemo, Daikin and Mizkan, which have expanded their presence or established new operations in the area. The wave of funding underscores Manchester’s growing appeal as a global hub for advanced manufacturing, innovation and green technology.

The region now hosts more than 25 Japanese firms, including NGK, Hitachi, Shimadzu, Sharp, Dentsu, Brother and Sun Chemical, reflecting deepening commercial ties between Japan and the North of England.

“While London dominates the headlines for productivity, international businesses are increasingly betting on Manchester,” said Ed Foulkes, managing partner at law firm Clarke Willmott in Manchester. “This highlights the city’s potential and the need for more balanced national support.”

Foulkes, whose firm advises major UK and international clients across manufacturing, energy and infrastructure, said the Japanese vote of confidence in Manchester demonstrated how regional economies can compete globally when they receive sustained investment and attention.

“Attracting investment like this shows that regions outside London can compete on the world stage,” he said. “With targeted infrastructure and government backing, the North West could secure the next wave of international business and innovation.”

He added that Japanese investment was not only bringing capital but also strengthening local skills, research and development, and supply chains, supporting Greater Manchester’s transition into an innovation-led economy.

“The confidence shown by Japanese companies should encourage other international investors to consider Manchester as a strategic base in the UK,” he said. “Companies are already showing confidence — now it’s time for the government to match it with strategic support.”

Greater Manchester continues to cement its position as the UK’s most successful destination for foreign direct investment outside London, topping national rankings for the third time in five years in 2024.

Analysts point to a mix of factors behind the city’s success: its world-class universities, innovation hubs in advanced materials and AI, and strong transport and logistics links make it a magnet for global manufacturers and technology firms.

The region’s export relationship with Japan has also deepened in recent years. According to official trade data, Greater Manchester exported £99 million in goods to Japan in 2022, alongside £151 million in service exports in 2021 — spanning professional services, digital industries and life sciences.

This economic partnership has been bolstered by the UK–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which came into force after Brexit, and Japan’s membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), further strengthening trade routes for British exporters.

Despite this momentum, regional leaders have warned that central government must do more to support Manchester’s growth trajectory. While the area benefits from devolution through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and Mayor Andy Burnham’s leadership, local businesses have called for additional investment in infrastructure, skills, and transport links to sustain international confidence.

Foulkes said the government’s “levelling up” rhetoric must now translate into real outcomes.

“Japanese businesses are placing big bets on Manchester’s potential,” he said. “The government must now make sure that domestic policy — from transport and housing to R&D funding — supports that same level of ambition.”

With the region’s growing reputation for science, technology and green industry, and international interest continuing to rise, business leaders believe Manchester is entering a pivotal decade.

If the government matches foreign investors’ enthusiasm with equal commitment, Foulkes said, “the North West could define the next chapter of Britain’s industrial future.”

Read more:
Japanese investors bet on Manchester — now UK must follow

A senior industry figure has called on the Government to take robust retaliatory action against the European Union’s new trade restrictions on British steel, warning that they could devastate the UK’s manufacturing base.

Simon Boyd, managing director of Dorset-based structural steel company REIDsteel, urged ministers to impose reciprocal tariffs to protect UK producers, manufacturers and supply chains after Brussels announced plans to slash tariff-free quotas for British steel exports.

The EU’s new measures will halve the UK’s tariff-free quota for structural steel exports and impose a 50% tariff on all shipments exceeding that limit, as part of a wider package designed to curb imports of Chinese steel.

“The total EU market for structural steel is eight million tonnes per annum, of which the UK is currently granted a tariff-free quota of 108,000 tonnes — less than 2% of the market,” Boyd said.

“Conversely, the UK market is 800,000 tonnes per annum while EU producers enjoy a tariff-free quota of 680,000 tonnes, equivalent to 85% of the UK market. Hardly fair trade.”

Boyd, who earlier this year campaigned to save British Steel’s blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, said the proposed changes would leave British exporters “virtually shut out” of the European market while allowing EU producers near-unrestricted access to the UK.

“All UK producers will be impacted by this change in policy,” he said. “Not only will exports be hit, but we could see a flood of imported steel if we don’t tighten our own trading measures.”

He called for the Government to “react boldly” by either negotiating an exemption from the EU’s anti-dumping measures or threatening equivalent counter-tariffs to restore balance.

“The EU may need to prop up its own ailing steel sector and fight off Chinese dumping, but this cannot be at the expense of the UK,” he warned. “There is no time to lose.”

According to industry body UK Steel, the sector directly employs 36,800 workers and supports a further 46,000 jobs in its supply chain. It contributes £1.7 billion directly to the economy, £2.2 billion through its supply network, and adds £3.1 billion to the UK’s balance of trade.

Industry leaders fear that without decisive action, the EU’s new tariffs could accelerate the decline of Britain’s heavy industry and undermine the Government’s ambition to rebuild domestic manufacturing.

Read more:
Government urged to get tough with EU over new steel tariffs

Your business loses hours every week when systems do not speak to each other. What if your technology could flex and grow as quickly as your ambitions?

For years, all in one platforms promised to solve these frustrations by putting everything under one roof. But the truth is no single system can excel at everything. At Signable, we see it differently. By embracing APIs, you can build a set-up that truly supports the way your organisation operates rather than forcing you to adapt to the limits of the software.

An API, short for Application Programming Interface, is simply a way for different tools to connect. If you have ever paid for something online and watched your bank details move securely between systems, you have used an API. They are the quiet engines in the background, making sure your systems link together and your data flows to the right place.

The old all in one systems often created as many challenges as they solved. Teams were boxed in by rigid workflows that did not fit their needs. Customisation was limited and innovation slowed while companies waited for vendor updates. Now, with APIs, you can connect the tools that serve you best and make them work as one joined up system. That is the heart of the composable business.

What composability really means

I like to think of composability as Lego. You build what you need today, swap a piece out when it no longer fits, and add new ones as your business grows. For organisations, that means selecting the best tools for each job and knowing they will connect smoothly without disrupting the wider system.

In a business context, each Lego brick is a tool designed for a specific job:

• A CRM that actually suits your customer base.
• A payments system that makes transactions effortless.
• A customer support platform built for, well, support.

The magic is how they all connect. APIs are the bridges between these blocks, helping you create a joined up stack that is greater than the sum of its parts.

For businesses this means:

• If a tool stops delivering, you can switch it without ripping out your whole system.
• Processes that suit your people. Software should flex with your teams across locations, helping them work smarter rather than boxing them into rigid structures.
• Scalable growth. As your business evolves, you can plug in new capabilities quickly.

The result is not just flexibility. It is efficiency. Freeing teams from wasted effort and helping them focus on growth.

Why this shift is happening now

Three big forces are driving the move toward composability.

1. Economic pressure. Organisations are under pressure to deliver more value with less. Composable systems let you choose leaner tools with measurable ROI.
2. The explosion of AI and automation. New AI tools appear almost daily. APIs are the bridge that lets you plug them in quickly.
3. Developer empowerment. This often gets overlooked, but it matters. Organisations cannot afford to be slowed by vendor release cycles. With strong APIs, developers or trusted partners can integrate new tools on your timetable.

Making APIs practical

For business leaders, APIs only matter if they deliver results. Too often, connecting systems turns into a long and resource-heavy exercise. A good API saves time, reduces errors, and gives teams confidence to adopt new tools quickly, supported by clear, practical guidance, not abstract manuals.

When APIs deliver on these points, they stop being a technical feature and become a strategic driver of adaptability and growth across the whole organisation.

How Signable is helping

At Signable, we have seen this shift play out across industries. Customers want eSignatures that integrate seamlessly into their existing systems, whether they operate from a single office or regional and national organisations running across multiple locations.

Many of our customers are already embedding Signable into CRMs, document management tools and wider workflows, proving how valuable seamless integration can be in practice. The demand for simpler, faster integration is exactly why we created our API Developer Portal to give organisations a dedicated space to experiment, test and build with ease.

We wanted to make sure it works just as well for a single team as it does for a complex, multi-site organisation, which is why we built it to be accessible for all:

• Get up and running in minutes, so projects deliver value faster.
• Test safely without risking disruption to live systems.
• Access clear, practical guidance designed to solve real business challenges.

What makes the Signable API different is its simplicity. It is quick to adopt, straightforward to test, and backed with practical guidance to help organisations plug in eSignatures without delays or heavy technical overhead.

How to begin building your composable stack

Getting started with composability does not need to feel overwhelming. A few practical steps can put you on the right path:

• Audit your systems. Identify which tools are essential across your business and which create bottlenecks.
• Check integration options. If a vendor makes it difficult to connect or switch, that should raise questions.
• Start small. Don’t overhaul everything at once. Change or add one tool at a time and track the results across the organisation.
• Listen to your teams. Employees will quickly show you what works in practice.

The important thing is not to rebuild everything in one go but to create steady progress. It is also about giving yourself and your business permission to adapt. Each improvement delivers value and builds momentum for wider transformation.

The takeaway

The organisations that thrive in the coming years will be those that stay agile and competitive, integrating new capabilities at speed. Composable stacks powered by APIs do not just save time and reduce friction. They give growing organisations the confidence to adapt, expand and compete at scale.

At Signable, we believe composability is the future, and we are here to help you make it a reality. For organisations exploring composability, you can sign up today and begin testing how Signable fits into your wider technology stack.

Read more:
Building a Composable Business with Signable’s API

Let’s get one thing straight: business is not an Olympic sport. No medals. No referees. No level playing field. It’s not drug-tested either, and you can forget about fair play.

The idea that commerce is some noble amateur pursuit where everyone lines up at the same starting line, toes behind the white paint, and waits for the gun is a comforting delusion. Out here, in the mud and chaos of modern busines, it’s survival of whoever’s got the better kit, the smarter coach, and the secret stash of performance enhancers that no-one else has worked out how to get hold of yet.

And right now, that secret stash is artificial intelligence.

There’s an enduring British fondness for the idea that if you just work hard, play fair, and put in the graft, you’ll win out in the end. Lovely in theory. Utterly laughable in practice. Anyone who’s ever tried to run a small business knows that it’s like trying to sprint uphill through treacle while Amazon and Apple whizz past on hoverboards powered by other people’s data.

The big players have teams of analysts, consultants, and developers all optimising every click, every purchase, every breath their customer takes. They’ve built their own Olympic training camps with altitude tents and nutritionists and shiny machines that make the rest of us look like we’re still using a fax.

And yet – here’s the twist – the gap is closing. Because, for once, the performance-enhancing substance that levels the field isn’t locked behind a corporate paywall. AI is available now, to everyone, and it’s legal, cheap, and astonishingly effective when used properly.

Think of AI not as the 12th man cheering from the sidelines, but as your 10th, 11th, 12th and 20th employee. The one who doesn’t need sleep, doesn’t call in sick, and doesn’t ask for a raise. The one who remembers everything, analyses faster than you can blink, and can spin out content, customer replies, financial models or product ideas while you’re still buttering your toast.

For years, the big breakthroughs were about infrastructure. Cloud computing cut costs and freed small firms from the tyranny of on-premise servers. SaaS platforms eliminated the need for entire IT departments. Suddenly you didn’t need a team of developers in a windowless room just to get a basic CRM running.

But AI? AI is the rocket fuel. The TNT. The caffeine shot to the jugular that lets a small business move like a giant. It’s the difference between a post-war racing car and a modern Formula 1 machine – both technically cars, yes, but one will still be cornering while the other’s already halfway round the next lap.

From Admin Assistant to Strategic Advisor

The beauty of AI is that it scales across everything. A café owner can use it to forecast demand and cut waste, while a marketing agency can generate entire campaign strategies before lunch. The accountant who once spent all night building spreadsheets now gets the same insight in five minutes flat.

And let’s be honest – the notion that AI will “replace” humans is the least interesting thing about it. Of course it will replace the dull bits. The repetitive, life-sucking admin that nobody misses. What matters is what you can do with the time and headspace it gives back.

You can serve customers better. Build faster. Think longer-term. Give a level of service the Dalai Lama would nod approvingly at, because your systems are actually listening to your clients instead of losing their emails in a spam folder.

There’s always a chorus of sceptics who say, “Oh, we’ll see how it pans out.” The same people who thought websites were a fad and email would never replace the fax. They talk about AI “maturing,” as if it’s a wine that’ll be better in five years. Newsflash: the people using it now will have built entirely new business models by the time you’re still swirling your glass and sniffing for notes of oak.

Small businesses that adopt AI today won’t just get more efficient – they’ll become more ambitious. The micro-brewery will start exporting. The artisan shop will go global. The consultant who once handled five clients can now manage fifty, because her virtual assistant is quietly doing the logistics while she focuses on the high-value work.

Of course, someone will object that it’s all a bit unfair – that using AI is like doping. But again, this isn’t sport. There’s no governing body, no World Anti-Doping Agency for the self-employed. Nobody’s taking your gold medal away because you used an algorithm to spot a trend before your rival did.

The ethics here aren’t about “cheating.” They’re about using every tool available to serve your customers, your team, and your sanity better. If your competitors are juicing up on automation, insight, and instant data while you insist on staying pure with spreadsheets and Post-it notes, that’s not moral integrity. That’s self-sabotage.

The great thing about this particular drug is that it rewards curiosity more than cash. You don’t need to be a billionaire to get started. Most AI tools cost less than a round of drinks and deliver a measurable return before you’ve finished the pint. The only barrier is the mindset that says, “This is for someone else.”

Use it to draft. To plan. To analyse. To dream bigger. Test, refine, repeat. The magic isn’t in the machine – it’s in what you do with it. But like any performance enhancer, it only works if you actually take it. Sitting there admiring the vial won’t win you the race.

So stop pretending business is a polite 400-metre jog. It’s a street fight. And if someone offers you a completely legal, side-effect-free, performance-enhanced boost that could turn your scrappy start-up into a medal contender – you’d be mad not to take it.

Because when the dust settles and the doors are blown clean off, the only question that matters will be: did you have the guts to take the shot?

Read more:
Business is not an Olympic sport, so invest today in that performance-enhanced boost

As a member of Generation X, I grew up in the workplace with a simple rule: if your boss asked you to do something, you said “yes” and got on with it.

That was the culture of the time. We didn’t often stop to ask whether the process made sense, or if there was a better way of completing the task.

Today, I see something different from my younger colleagues. Generation Z, now entering the workforce in increasing numbers, is far less likely to nod along silently. Instead, they ask “why?” Why do we use this system? Why is the meeting structured this way?

At first glance, these questions can feel like pushback. For Gen X managers, who were trained to value quiet diligence, this may come across as defiance. But the truth is more nuanced — and, I would argue, more constructive.

Gen Z grew up in an era of instant information and constant change. They are used to finding answers at their fingertips and have little patience for “because that’s the way it’s always been done.” They expect clarity, purpose, and context. And in a world where businesses must adapt quickly, that perspective can be invaluable.

That’s not to say this cultural difference doesn’t create friction. Sometimes a task simply needs to be done, without a lengthy debate about its rationale. As leaders, it’s part of our role to balance the need for explanation with the need for execution.

But I’ve come to see that Gen Z’s instinct to ask “why” isn’t laziness or resistance — it’s engagement. They want to understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture. They want to know their effort has meaning and what they’re doing is worth it. And when we take the time to provide that context, we often uncover inefficiencies, redundancies, and opportunities that my generation might never have questioned.

There’s also a broader cultural element at play. Gen X entered the workforce at a time when job security often depended on keeping your head down and doing as you were told. If you chose to question the process or the decision this could be seen as rocking the boat or stepping on your colleagues toes. Gen Z, by contrast, has grown up in an environment where questioning authority is not only permitted but often expected — in education, in politics, and certainly in the digital world where hierarchies are flattened by access to information.

Gen Z are growing up in a time where they have been told to question everything. They’ve been told to speak up and challenge opinions and, if they disagree with something, they are encouraged to share their view.

This mindset shows up at work. When a Gen Z employee asks “why,” they are applying the same critical thinking skills they’ve used since childhood. To ignore that impulse is to waste one of their greatest strengths.

Still, integration isn’t effortless. I know some managers can feel drained by the constant need to explain. Some complain that the “why” slows progress and that they feel it undermines authority. Not every question deserves a long answer, and not every project can wait for debate. The skill, I think, lies in setting clear boundaries: encouraging curiosity while making it clear that, once a decision is made, then you need to get on board and move forward as a team.

What I’ve also noticed is that this divide isn’t as rigid as it seems. Many Gen X leaders are starting to adopt the “why” themselves, realising it’s a powerful tool for innovation. And many Gen Z workers are learning that sometimes the best answer to “why” is simply “because it needs to get done.” The cross-pollination of habits is, in fact, creating a healthier workplace culture.

So perhaps the divide isn’t really about “yes” versus “why” at all. It’s about timing. Gen X instincts push us to act swiftly, to deliver, to get results. Gen Z instincts push us to pause, to question, to refine. Both are essential. Execution without reflection can become stagnant and prevent a business from progressing whilst reflection without execution can become paralysis. The best organisations will be those that join together.

As an employer, I no longer see “why” as a challenge to authority. I see it as an invitation to think differently — and in today’s business environment, that’s not a threat. It’s an opportunity. When Gen X discipline meets Gen Z curiosity, we get something more than compliance or critique. We get progress.

That doesn’t mean the adjustment is always easy. There are and will continue to be many challenges that we will struggle with. I struggle with the shift, especially when it comes to attitudes toward work-life balance. When I started out, it was an unspoken expectation that you stayed late, worked weekends, and went the extra mile without much thought of reward. For many in Gen Z, those assumptions simply don’t apply. They value clear boundaries, and they are unapologetic about protecting their personal time. To a Gen X employer who grew up in a culture of long hours and sacrifice, this still catches me off guard but on reflection, perhaps they have something to teach us here too. Learning when to switch off, to set limits, and to enjoy a healthier balance is not a weakness.

The generational divide is not just about asking “why” versus saying “yes.” It’s also about rethinking what it means to work well, and to live well. As much as Gen Z has to learn from us, we have just as much to learn from them.

Read more:
Asking why vs. saying yes: the generational divide in the modern office

Rumour has it that Rachel Reeves is limbering up for November with a Budget that will make the taxman’s quill squeak like a stuck pig. Property, pensions, profits, pasties — all grist to the Exchequer’s mill.

The Treasury is leaving no stone unturned, no pocket unpicked, no cupboard unopened. The only thing, one suspects, that remains miraculously safe from her fiscal scythe is Larry the Cat’s supper.

Cat food, so far, has escaped. But give it time. If Reeves wakes up one morning and thinks Felix is a luxury good, then Larry may be forced to reacquaint himself with the vermin of Whitehall.

Which would be, let’s face it, the first proper day’s work he’s done in a decade.

The mood music is grimly familiar. Reeves is billed as Britain’s most hawk-eyed chancellor since Gladstone, scrutinising every allowance and relief with the intensity of a headmistress checking pockets for contraband. She talks of “closing loopholes” and “fiscal responsibility”, which translates as: if you earn it, spend it, save it or feed it to your cat, I want a slice. There is a whiff of the Victorian workhouse about the whole thing — the sense that leisure, comfort, and small mercies are indulgences for which the State must extract a fee.

The thought of Larry’s pouch of Sheba being clobbered with 20% VAT is only half a joke. Reeves hasn’t said it. But given the way she’s nosing through the nation’s shopping basket like a customs officer at Dover, it might only be the fact that she’s scared of the animal-loving electorate that keeps Purina safe from the Chancellor’s paw.

Larry, then, becomes the perfect stand-in for the rest of us. He lives in the lap of political luxury, adored, photographed, never held accountable for his failure to deliver on the “mouser” part of his job title. And yet even he is only one Treasury brainstorm away from being told to pull his weight. The day the food bill doubles is the day Larry starts catching mice again.

And so it is with us. Once pampered, now fleeced, the British taxpayer is being nudged towards self-sufficiency by stealth. First you taxed our booze, then our cars, then our pensions, and now our every side-hustle. Tomorrow it will be our pets, the next day our plants, and eventually our patience.

The truly comic element is not that Reeves might be tempted to tax pet food, but that it has come to feel plausible. When a government makes you believe even the moggy’s supper is at risk, you know you’re in the realm of fiscal parody. It’s like imagining air being metered. Please insert £1 to continue breathing.

If Reeves could work out how to slap a duty on belly rubs or a surcharge on purring, you sense she’d do it before breakfast. The only thing stopping her is the optics of being seen to shake down a cat who has a bigger fanbase than most cabinet ministers.

And yet, strip away the feline froth, and the point is clear: this scattergun approach to taxation is not sustainable. You cannot tax your way to prosperity any more than you can slim by raiding the fridge at midnight. What Reeves needs — but seems reluctant to risk — is growth, investment, something genuinely bold. Instead we get a Budget that looks like the frantic contents of a handbag tipped out on the kitchen table: receipts, half-chewed mints, and a few coins scavenged from the lining.

Larry’s food may survive unscathed this time, but the message is unmistakeable: the Treasury has its nose in our cupboards, its paws on our wallets, and its eye on the cat’s dish. Heaven help us when they start eyeing the litter tray.

Read more:
Reeves’ Budget: is Larry’s cat food the last refuge?

In today’s fast-moving business world, inclusivity is often spoken about but less often practiced in meaningful ways. True inclusivity goes far beyond ticking boxes, it’s about creating spaces where every voice is heard, respected, and valued.

For SME and SMB leaders, this isn’t just about doing the right thing; it’s about shaping company cultures from the offset that fuel creativity, problem-solving, and long-term growth.

I began my career in banking, where competition was not only encouraged but often celebrated as a measure of success. While this approach drove results, it left little room for inclusivity. Voices that didn’t match the dominant culture, whether through background, gender, or even communication style, were too often overlooked. Collaboration sometimes took a back seat to individual performance.

The result? Many innovative ideas were left unheard, and talented people felt sidelined. I learned that when inclusivity is missing, businesses don’t just lose diversity of perspective, they risk losing their brightest people altogether.

Real inclusivity starts with listening. Leaders sometimes forget that the simplest act, genuinely hearing someone, can have the greatest impact. Listening with intent means seeking out perspectives that don’t mirror your own, asking questions without judgment, and encouraging quieter team members to share ideas in ways that feel safe to them.

Accessibility should be woven into the very fabric of how a company operates, not bolted on afterwards. That may mean making meetings more flexible for neurodiverse employees, ensuring written materials are clear and inclusive, or rethinking recruitment practices to open doors to people who may not have followed traditional career paths. SMEs in particular can be agile here, setting high standards without the bureaucracy that slows larger corporations.

Diverse thinking as a driver of innovation

Inclusivity is not only about representation; it’s also about perspective. When teams bring together people of different backgrounds, disciplines, and life experiences, the results can be transformative. Diverse thinking challenges “the way we’ve always done it” and often sparks the most innovative solutions. For SMEs competing with larger players, this diversity of thought is a real competitive advantage.

Inclusivity is not a one-off initiative, it’s a continual practice that should be integrated into every part of business. Leaders need to model openness and curiosity every day. By doing so, they show their teams that inclusivity is a core value, not a campaign or tick box exercise. Over time, this builds trust, loyalty, and a culture where people feel they belong and want to contribute their best.

At Invicta Vita, we’ve seen that when inclusivity is lived, not just talked about, performance is enhanced. Too often, I’ve seen talented people fade quietly into the background of a business. They lose their voice, not because they lack ideas or drive, but because no one is actively advocating for them. Over time, that silence chips away at confidence, and companies lose out on the richness of their contribution teams become more resilient, creative, and committed. It’s not about perfection, it’s about progress, about creating space for every voice, and recognising that our differences can be our strongest asset.

Read more:
Creating a space for every voice: How to lead with genuine inclusivity

For many SMEs, growth often hinges on one big question: hire from outside your organisation or invest in who you already have?

In today’s talent market – shaped by changing expectations, rising recruitment costs and tighter budgets – the answer is increasingly clear. Supporting internal development doesn’t just boost retention and reduce churn, it helps businesses build confident, capable teams who understand the company, live its values and are ready to lead it into the future.

At Chubb Fire & Security, we call this approach Building Great Leaders – our long-term commitment to helping people grow, wherever they are in the business. From apprenticeships and mentoring to personalised learning and internal mobility, we aim to equip every employee to take the next step in their career.

This isn’t just good for culture. It’s good for business.

Why Internal Development Pays Off

The case for growing talent from within has never been stronger.

According to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 20251, career progression is the top motivation for learning, and organisations that are classified as “career development champions” – those with robust internal development programmes – tend to outperform others on key metrics like retention, engagement and internal mobility.

Meanwhile, a 2025 UK Government rapid review2 found strong links between learning and development and improved employee engagement, retention, wellbeing and job satisfaction – particularly when learning and development  opportunities were clearly connected to individual goals and supported by managers.

For SMEs, that’s a major opportunity. Smaller teams mean greater visibility, faster decision-making and more flexibility to shape roles around people, rather than trying to fit people into roles.

How Chubb Builds Talent from Within

At Chubb, we believe that everyone is a leader and everyone deserves a great leader as well. That belief underpins our approach to internal development, which is built around four key elements:

Career Path Model

Our transparent Career Path Model acts as a development roadmap. It shows employees the roles available, the skills needed and how to progress – whether that means stepping up, sideways or into a completely new function.

This visibility helps people feel in control of their growth. As our People Playbook puts it:

“This model works like a map to guide your growth… helping you shape a career that suits your goals and potential.”

Mentoring and Leader Labs

Our mentoring programme connects employees with colleagues who’ve walked the path before them – helping them build confidence, networks and skills. Meanwhile, Chubb’s Leader Labs offer targeted development opportunities across different levels and disciplines.

Individual Development Plans (IDPs)

We support employees and their managers to create IDPs that are both structured and flexible. These plans are backed by access to Chubb’s Learning Hub, LinkedIn Learning and tailored training aligned to business goals.

Growth in All Directions

We actively encourage lateral moves and cross-functional experiences. At Chubb, career development isn’t just about climbing a ladder – it’s about helping people explore, experiment and evolve.

This multi-path approach helps us build future leaders who know our business and are ready to shape its future.

Four Ways SMEs Can Start Growing Their Own Talent

You don’t need a fully resourced L&D team or a formal framework to start developing internal talent. Here are four simple, scalable ways SMEs can get going:

Start with Conversations, Not Promotions

Development begins with listening. Build a culture where career conversations happen regularly, not just at appraisal time. Ask your team what excites them, what they want to learn and where they see themselves in a year’s time.

Make Learning Part of the Day Job

Support stretch opportunities: a new project, a different client, a cross-department collaboration. Encourage informal shadowing or reverse mentoring. Small learning moments often lead to big confidence leaps.

Bring Structure to the Ambition

Even a one-page development plan can make a big difference. Set goals. Track progress. Create visibility. Most importantly, when someone moves roles internally, tell their story – it sets a powerful example.

Recognise and Reward Progress

Celebrate people who take on learning challenges, support peers or mentor others. Recognition reinforces the message that development matters, even when promotions aren’t immediately available.

The Retention Dividend

When people can see a future for themselves inside your business, they’re far more likely to stay. That loyalty builds continuity, keeps valuable experience in-house and reduces the cost and disruption of external hiring.

In fact, research consistently shows that career development is one of the top reasons people stay within – or leave – a role. According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report, many companies are prioritising retention by offering learning opportunities that support clear career paths and internal mobility.

Chubb’s experience reflects that. Many of our senior leaders began their careers in junior or front-line roles and stayed, because they saw real opportunities to grow. That kind of loyalty isn’t accidental. It’s built, day by day, through trust, opportunity and support.

The Bottom Line

Growing internal talent isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a business strategy.

For SMEs, it offers a cost-effective, culture-aligned way to build skills, drive engagement and prepare for the future. It keeps your best people close and gives them a reason to stay.

At Chubb, our purpose of Building Great Leaders means seeing potential in everyone. It’s not about perfection, it’s about progress. With the right support, people grow – and when people grow, business follows.

Read more:
Why Growing Your Own Talent Is Good for Business

When people think about London’s economy, manufacturing is not usually the first sector that comes to mind.

Yet more than 14,000 manufacturing businesses operate across the capital, many of them micro or small enterprises concentrated in a number of clusters across the city such as Park Royal (West London), Brimsdown Industrial Estate (North London) and Maker Mile (Hackney, East London). These London firms contribute to a sector valued at £11 billion in 2023, an increase from £10.2 billion the year before.

In London alone, the Food & Drink sector, the city’s largest manufacturing subsector, generated £3.9 billion in 2023, illustrating the scale of enterprises driving the capital’s economy. The numbers may not suggest rapid expansion, but they underline that manufacturing continues to play a steady and important role in London’s economy.

Much of this work happens out of sight, but its impact is everywhere; manufacturing underpins the products and services that keep the city running, from everyday goods to high-growth sectors. For example, AI is one of the most significant emerging trends, and London’s manufacturing firms are starting to explore how it can transform production processes, alongside with technologies such as 3D printing and flexible manufacturing.

Food and drink producers supply restaurants, cafés, and local shops, with more 300 manufacturers in Park Royal and 130 manufacturers based in Hackney alone. Textiles and specialist makers provide costumes and set design for the West End, supported by hubs in Westminster, which is home to around 150 small manufacturing firms. Small engineers and craftspeople across the city also create products that feed into our High Street as well as hospitality, and healthcare. In short, manufacturing in London may not be highly visible, but it remains an essential part of how the city functions. Their work sustains London’s cultural and commercial life in ways that are often overlooked.

Across the UK, manufacturing accounts for over £220 billion of output and provides millions of jobs. Food & Drink is a major subsector in almost every region, supporting local supply chains and jobs. Beyond this, each area has its own specialisation: the North West is strong in Transport Equipment and Pharmaceuticals, the East Midlands in Metal Products and Transport Equipment, and Yorkshire & Humber in Metal Products, Chemicals, and textiles. Together, these regional clusters form the backbone of the UK’s industrial base. London may specialise in smaller, creative, and niche producers, but it is part of this larger national ecosystem that keeps supply chains moving and supports exports around the world.

Programmes such as Made Smarter UK, now extended to London with a £1.25 million scheme, are vital for supporting manufacturers across the capital and the UK. The programme has already supported over 3,000 businesses in other regions of the UK, contributing to more than 1,500 new jobs and generating over £300 million in projected GVA. We will be looking forward to see similar impact of job creation and growth in the capital.

They help SMEs adopt digital tools and new technologies, while providing access to mentoring, workshops, and peer networks. The programme also provides match-funded grants to trial new technologies and funded internships to support the integration of digital solutions. This support allows businesses to tackle challenges such as supply chain disruptions, skills gaps, and rapidly changing markets. In doing so, the programme strengthens local communities and reinforces the foundations of the UK’s industrial base.

While the sector may face some challenges compared to last year, it continues to play a crucial role in the economy. In London, the manufacturing sector accounts for 2.2 percent of total employment and a similar share of GVA, and investing in workforce development and apprenticeships will be key to sustaining this contribution. By equipping young Londoners with skills in engineering, design, and digital manufacturing, we can ensure that businesses have the talent needed to innovate and grow. At the same time, fostering collaboration between manufacturers, universities, and tech providers will help the sector remain resilient allowing  even the smallest firms to access tools and expertise that would otherwise be out of reach.

These clusters provide jobs and help keep local economies running, from supplying neighbourhood shops to supporting global industries. With the right support, manufacturing in London can adapt to future demands.

We must continue to invest in our makers. By nurturing talent, supporting innovation, and strengthening local supply chains, we can ensure that making and creating remain at the heart of London’s story and that the sector continues to shape the city’s future. The “Made in London” label is not just a mark of quality; it reflects the creativity and expertise that set the capital apart.

Read more:
Investing in Makers is investing in London’s Future 

Jeremy Hunt has accused Rachel Reeves of dragging Britain into “stagnation and decline” by raising taxes, warning that the Chancellor’s policies risk smothering the entrepreneurial drive the country needs.

Writing for Conservative Home, the former Chancellor said it was now “all but nailed on” that Reeves will raise taxes by £30bn in November’s Budget — pushing the overall increase in Britain’s tax burden to £70bn in just 13 months. He argued that while ministers focus on who the losers will be — pensioners, homeowners, savers — the greater danger lies in the long-term drag on economic growth.

Hunt pointed to OECD data showing that between 2010 and 2019, countries with lower public spending such as the US, South Korea and Australia grew on average 2% faster than high-spending nations such as Finland and Denmark. He argued that high taxation discourages investment, crowds out private capital and ultimately stifles “animal spirits” — the entrepreneurial energy John Maynard Keynes once said was essential for capitalism.

“Simply put, people work harder in countries with lower taxes,” Hunt said, citing data showing workers in lower-tax OECD economies put in 260 more hours a year than those in high-tax countries. He warned that Britain’s welfare system undermines incentives to work, with some claimants projected to earn more from benefits than full-time employees on the national living wage.

The Tory MP drew comparisons with the US, where Mississippi has pursued a decade of phased tax cuts. He claimed the policy had transformed the state into the fastest-growing in America, lifting wages and investment while reducing poverty. “The poorest state in America now has a higher output per head than we do,” he wrote.

Hunt, who raised taxes himself as Chancellor to steady markets after the Liz Truss crisis, said those hikes were only meant as a temporary necessity. He contrasted his approach — cutting national insurance and introducing “full expensing” for business investment — with Reeves’s decision to permanently increase borrowing and taxation.

“Countries with lower taxes tend to grow faster,” Hunt concluded. “I know which I’d prefer for the UK.”

Read more:
Jeremy Hunt warns Reeves: soaring taxes will kill UK’s ‘animal spirits’

As social media continues to weave itself into the fabric of daily life, the algorithms that drive engagement have come under fire for their potential to foster addictive behaviours.

With research linking these algorithms to increased anxiety and feelings of inadequacy, the question arises: should we regulate their use? The Liberal Democrats are now calling for cigarette-style warnings on social media apps.

This conversation is not only vital for user well-being but also presents an opportunity for businesses to adopt responsible marketing practices that prioritise mental health. Mariangela Caineri Zenati, Marketing Manager at social media management platform Loomly, offers her expert insight on how championing transparency and promoting positive content will allow brands to engage their audiences ethically while navigating the complexities of the digital landscape.

“The debate surrounding the legality of addictive algorithms in social media has gained significant traction in recent years, particularly in light of their profound implications for mental health and overall well-being. As social media platforms increasingly rely on sophisticated algorithms to maximise user engagement, the potential for addictive behaviours has come under scrutiny.

“Research highlights that these algorithms can create dependency-like behaviours, reminiscent of substance addiction. A recent study revealed that the instant gratification derived from likes, shares and comments can trigger dopamine release, reinforcing compulsive behaviours among users. This is particularly alarming for younger demographics, who are often more susceptible to these influences.

“The Royal Society for Public Health’s #StatusofMind report underscores this concern, identifying platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat as being linked to increased feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and loneliness among young users. This report indicates that these platforms rank as the most detrimental for mental health, highlighting the urgent need for more responsible practices.

“The pervasive nature of these algorithms can contribute to rising rates of anxiety and depression among users. The #StatusofMind report also calls for social media companies to implement educational warnings and promote healthier online interactions: this raises important questions about the ethical responsibilities of businesses that utilise social media marketing strategies.

“As businesses increasingly turn to social media for marketing, they have a unique opportunity to approach these platforms responsibly. Companies can prioritise user well-being by promoting positive content, fostering supportive online communities and ensuring transparency in their advertising practices; for instance, brands can engage in campaigns that encourage mental health awareness and provide resources for users facing challenges. This way, brands can align themselves with ethical marketing practices while simultaneously building trust and loyalty among their audience.

“Responsible social media marketing involves understanding the impact of algorithms on user behaviour. Businesses should be mindful of how their content may influence users and strive to create a balanced digital experience; this could involve diversifying content types, avoiding sensationalism and steering clear of tactics that exploit users’ vulnerabilities for engagement.

“The potential for addiction necessitates a critical examination of the legal and ethical frameworks surrounding social media algorithms. Businesses must play a proactive role in promoting responsible marketing practices, which can help mitigate the negative effects of these algorithms while enhancing user experience. Addressing these issues is vital for creating a more positive online landscape, ultimately benefitting both users and brands alike.”

Read more:
Beyond Engagement: Why It’s Time to Rethink Social Media’s Addictive Algorithms

In today’s fast-paced, hyper-connected world, meeting new people has never been easier.

LinkedIn messages arrive in your inbox, networking events seem to appear every week, Zoom calls can introduce you to someone on the other side of the country—or even the world—social media groups create communities based on shared interests, and casual introductions from friends or colleagues happen more often than we realise.

It is almost effortless to expand your network, and the advice we are constantly given is to take advantage of every opportunity. The reasoning is simple: the more people you know, the more doors will open. And there is certainly truth to that, but it is only part of the picture.

The real value of connecting with others does not lie in how many business cards you collect or how many LinkedIn connections you can boast about. It lies in the depth of those relationships, in the human bonds you create when you meet someone without a hidden agenda. There is an overlooked flaw in the way many of us approach networking. Too often, when we meet someone new, there is an unspoken question lingering just beneath the surface: “What can this person do for me?” At first glance, it seems practical. After all, business is about leveraging relationships, is it not? We want our connections to be useful, to help us grow, to open doors to opportunities we might not otherwise access. But when every interaction is filtered through that lens, we risk missing the most valuable part of connecting with another person: the chance to truly see them.

People have a remarkable ability to sense when they are being “worked” rather than genuinely engaged with. Conversations become mechanical, cold, and transactional. They feel one-sided and forgettable, leaving both parties with little sense of fulfilment. The energy that makes people remember you, the spark that forms a meaningful bond, is missing. It is not the job title, the network, or the resources that make someone memorable—it is the humanity they bring to the interaction, and the humanity you reciprocate.

Meeting someone without an agenda means showing up as a human being first, before any professional or personal objectives. It means allowing the conversation to exist for its own sake, not as a stepping stone towards a goal. When you shift your mindset from “What can I get from this person?” to “Who is this person, and what can I learn about them?” everything changes. You begin to ask questions not to extract value but to understand experiences, choices, and perspectives. You listen not to find the perfect opening for your own pitch, but to hear the story unfolding in front of you. You share parts of yourself without expectation or calculation, simply because sharing is part of connecting.

This approach to networking can feel unfamiliar at first because our society often equates efficiency with effectiveness. We are taught to maximise every moment, every conversation, every introduction. There is a pressure to quantify interactions in terms of return on investment—whether it is a potential client, a job lead, or an influential contact. But this way of thinking overlooks the long-term, often unpredictable benefits that come from relationships rooted in genuine curiosity and mutual respect. The most meaningful connections, the ones that stand the test of time, rarely begin with immediate transactional value. They grow slowly, nurtured by shared experiences, laughter, and trust.

The surprising thing is that when you let go of the agenda, opportunities often appear in ways you could never have predicted. People you meet without any expectation of gain may later become collaborators, mentors, friends, or allies in ways that feel completely organic. Because the relationship was not forced or calculated, it is stronger, more resilient, and more authentic. Opportunities arise not because you asked for them, but because trust and mutual respect have been established. People are far more inclined to help, recommend, or partner with those they feel genuinely connected to, and these connections are built precisely in the spaces where agendas are absent.

In a world dominated by efficiency and strategy, it can feel counterintuitive to meet people without an explicit goal. But the truth is that the depth of our human connections cannot be forced. Genuine engagement takes time, patience, and openness. It requires the willingness to enter a conversation without a checklist, without a mental tally of what you might gain. It asks for vulnerability—the willingness to be seen and to see others, without expectation. And when we embrace this approach, we find that the value of these interactions often far surpasses anything that could have been calculated.

Meeting someone without an agenda also transforms how we experience our own lives. We begin to see people not as resources but as complex, fascinating individuals with unique stories and perspectives. We notice the richness in diversity of thought, in lived experience, and in the ways different people navigate the world. Our empathy deepens, our listening skills improve, and we develop a genuine appreciation for human complexity. We start to approach relationships with curiosity instead of calculation, with generosity instead of strategy, and with openness instead of caution.

The next time you find yourself in a conversation with someone new, pause before letting your mind run through the familiar questions of utility and benefit. Try simply showing up as a person meeting another person. Let the conversation unfold naturally, allow curiosity to guide your questions, and give the other person room to share without interruption. Listen with full attention. Respond with honesty. Share your experiences without expecting reciprocation. In doing so, you create the conditions for a connection that is both meaningful and enduring.

Some of the most rewarding relationships in life begin this way—not with a calculated goal, not with an immediate payoff, but with genuine human connection. Over time, these relationships often lead to opportunities, collaborations, and friendships that feel effortless precisely because they were never forced. The paradox is that the more we stop trying to “use” connections, the more valuable those connections become.

Ultimately, meeting people without an agenda is not just a networking strategy—it is a way of engaging with the world that prioritises humanity over utility, curiosity over calculation, and connection over convenience. By approaching interactions in this way, we open ourselves to relationships that are richer, deeper, and more transformative than anything we could have engineered. The next conversation you have could be the start of something remarkable—if you let it happen without trying to control it.

Read more:
Why Meeting People Without an Agenda Matters