By Gaia Freydefont
The Budget has shown signs of promise for the UK’s entrepreneurs, particularly those living outside of London.
Central to last week’s Budget, the government was ‘levelling up’ the UK via a first bidding round from the £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund.
This will be invested into improving vital pubic services and helping small and medium sized enterprises throughout the UK to innovate and grow, ultimately driving economic growth.
The government is lending support to local and innovative businesses across the UK, in turn expanding employment opportunities in local areas and crowding in private investment.
The Budget will fortify its efforts to make sure small enterprises and start-ups throughout the UK can obtain the finances that they need.
The government’s support towards innovative business creates large incentives for people throughout the UK to launch their own business ideas, producing very exciting growth for the start-up space.
Another large part of supporting budding businesses is investing in innovation and technology by pushing for greater business investment in Research and Development activity.
The government is therefore increasing public R&D investment to record levels, providing £20 billion across the UK by 2024-2025 and has even expressed its aim to reach a target of 2.4% GDP investment in R&D by 2027.
At the same time, the government is refining R&D tax grants by increasing expenditure to include data and cloud costs, ultimately supporting modern research methods.
The government’s direct investment in R&D combined with support for R&D tax grants is forecast to result in a significant increase in the UK’s R&D support as a proportion of GDP: from 0.7% in 2018 to 1.1% in 2024-25.
There is no question the Budget will help support the UK’s research base, consequently ensuring that enterprises and start-ups throughout the UK have access to the skills, information and finances they need to grow.
The levelling up agenda unleashed by the government along with R&D tax grants are very exciting for the future of the start-up space in the UK.
Initiating massive improvements in fulfilling job prospects across the UK, significant advancements in modern research methods and committing to invest in innovative businesses, levelling up is bound to create great incentives for people to start up their own businesses in certain areas of the UK.