Looking Forward

Talent and markets continue to be the principal barriers for scaleups. While scaleups remain highly ambitious, leaders are worried about the effect of Brexit on their market access and fear losing support from public sector schemes.

Many key issues and barriers which scaleups face remain consistent over time, but uncertainty over Brexit continues to grow as a barrier to exporters. Demand among scaleups for local support is growing considerably – highlighting the need to bolster UK’s scaleup ecosystem.

Looking forward, scaleups continue to be concerned about their ability to access markets in the UK and internationally. When asked to rate factors that are vital or very important for their continuing growth, access to UK markets ranked higher than access to talent for the first time.

When asked to choose a single factor, access to talent has remained the primary barrier to growth, though access to markets is closing the gap.

Looking at their attitudes, scaleups are aware that they are outperforming their peers (58%). Six out of ten scaleups (57%) think it is realistic to expect 20%+ growth every year, demonstrating the strength of their continuing ambitions.

Reflecting on the business environment, half (45%) have concerns about the UK being a good location for doing business in the next few years. In addition, significantly, and still concerning is the fact that similar to last year two-fifths of scaleups (41%) still feel that there is little support available to them.

There is continuing support (47%) for the view that most of the money and advice is in London and the South East – which highlights the regional disparities that exist.

Page URL: https://www.scaleupinstitute.org.uk/articles/looking-forward/

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