Taking the pulse of UK businesses

The UK economy has been effectively stagnant since the start of 2022 in the face of a number of economic headwinds, including global supply chain disruption, the war in Ukraine and resultant energy price shock, the impact of inflation and, more recently, drags on spending and investment from rising interest rates.

While recent revisions to national accounts from the ONS show that the UK recovered faster from the pandemic than previously thought – finding that the economy is 1.8% larger than in Q4 2019 compared to 0.2% lower under previous estimates – they don’t alter the picture of a fairly subdued economic performance since the re-opening boost faded in in the middle of 2022.

To better understand the main economic challenges facing UK businesses during these challenging times, we included a supplementary question in each of our August surveys that asked respondents in manufacturing, services and distributive trades sectors “What do you see as the main economic challenge(s) facing your business over the next 6-12 months”. We received 927 responses in total, which have been categorised in the below download.