The housing market is a key part of the UK national psyche. The inexorable rise in house prices has enriched baby boomers, but now unaffordable prices exacerbated by sharply higher mortgage interest rates are destroying the life prospects and restricting the lifestyles of younger generations. The government talks of supply and demand, sets unrealistic housebuilding targets and tinkers with planning
More mixed signals on the economy mean uncertainty for UK businesses We finished 2023 with arguments raging on whether the UK was already in a shallow recession or might end up in one early this year. Now we have another batch of confusing signals. The respected EY Item Club have just upgraded their GDP growth forecast for 2024 to 0.9%
Near the top of the list of worries that keep many manufacturing bosses awake at night is hiring and retaining the right talent for an industry being overwhelmed by helter skelter technological change. Recruiting enough people was already a problem in a tight labour market, but the emphasis is increasingly moving away from the number to getting hold of staff
The manufacturing sector has more experience of significant non-human involvement in its research, operations and administration than almost any other after decades using data analysis, machine learning and robotics. Now AI is being used to harness the power of these well-established methods to reshape traditional manufacturing processes. This is ushering the industry into a new era of intelligent automation in
Figures for December 2023 published by The Insolvency Service have confirmed that 2023 was a record year for business failures. The annual total of 26,595 corporate insolvency filings is just a little higher than the previous record of 26,556 set in 2009 at the peak of the global financial crisis. This figure is 14% above 2022 and 43% up on
The vitriolic aggression associated for so long with the UK’s decision to leave the European Union has largely dissipated. There is now a continuing and largely constructive debate about the true impact of Brexit on the key UK manufacturing sector, which accounts for around a tenth of GDP, especially in the near parallel context of the pandemic and its effects.
