Meet the winners of the Santander X UK Awards 2026 Partner Santander’s flagship entrepreneurship competition, the Santander X UK Awards, gives university ventures, startups and SMEs the chance to pitch for a share of £150,000 in equity-free funding. Some 90 businesses were shortlisted across three categories this year, before being narrowed down to nine finalists. The judging panel included Baroness Nicky Morgan, Google’s Adam Khalifa and [...]
‘We’d love an apprentice – but the government has made it too expensive’ Economics Small companies around Britain are facing a cost of business crisis. Bowers & Jones, an award-winning manufacturing firm, tells City AM that changes to the minimum wage have priced it out of employing apprentices. When Jane Somerville led a management buyout of her manufacturing firm and shifted its entire factory across the West Midlands in [...]
‘Cost of business crisis’ as government drives up overheads by 70 per cent in a decade Business British companies are facing a “cost of business crisis” as a string of controversial government policies have pushed up an average firm’s expenses by 70 per cent in a decade, one of the country’s largest industry bodies has found. A typical-mid-sized firm is now paying roughly £827,000 more a year than they were in 2016 [...]
Small businesses ‘lose 379m hours a year’ on red tape March 16, 2026 Small businesses lose around 379m hours a year and spend around £36bn a year on dealing with red tape, new research has indicated, piling pressure on the Labour government to fast-track its deregulatory drive. Business secretary Peter Kyle has emphasised that the government remains committed to reducing the regulatory burden on businesses by up to [...]