Over the past few years businesses have faced immense challenges: the Covid-19 pandemic, soaring energy costs as a result of the war in Ukraine and recent economic uncertainty.  Yet despite these challenges, UK scaleups continue to thrive. 

Scaleup businesses are critical for driving productivity, economic growth and innovation, and for creating jobs. As this report highlights, they make a significant contribution to the UK economy with 33,955 scaleups contributing more than £1.2 trillion in turnover and employing more than 3 million people. This means they account for more than 50 % of the turnover of all SMEs.

I am delighted therefore to support this report, as it rightly looks to celebrate the success of UK scaleups in adapting to these challenging circumstances, showing great resilience and entrepreneurship.  

As a Government we are committed to working with key stakeholders, like the Scaleup Institute, to better understand the challenges faced by businesses looking to scale, and to support them in overcoming these barriers to ensure they can continue to thrive. 

We know, for example, that scaleups are highly innovative and international, and that accessing talent at the right time is crucial for their growth. That is why this year we introduced the High Potential Individual and Scaleup visa routes to help ensure businesses attract and retain high-skilled, globally mobile innovation talent. This will encourage those with valuable skills to come to the UK and enhance our already flourishing labour market. 

We also understand that access to markets and the pace of finance are barriers scaling businesses face. To help address these issues the government is launching – through Innovate UK – an Innovation Hub to foster market connectivity, and is continuing to take action to unlock more private investment in scaleups through a number of British Business Bank initiatives, and regulatory changes to unlock new pools of institutional capital.

It’s encouraging to see that scaleup activity and the scaleup pipeline is spreading across the UK, but we recognise that regional disparities remain. Tackling these differences and driving prosperity as part of levelling up left behind regions of the UK is a key priority for this government. A dedicated £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund has been established to invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK. We also published the Levelling Up White Paper earlier this year which unveiled our ambitious programme to reduce inequality and close the gap – in productivity, health, incomes, and opportunity – between much of the southeast and the rest of the country. 

I am thankful for the work that the Scale up Institute and others are doing and, as we look ahead to 2023, the Government remains committed to working together to ensure we create a dynamic and vibrant business ecosystem for scale up businesses, so that they can continue to innovate, grow and create jobs. 

Kevin Hollinrake MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.