Sound-proof booths are as important as AI for your office March 10, 2026 Your employees’ ability to concentrate is the biggest limiting factor on productivity, says Paul Armstrong Corporate leaders are pouring billions into artificial intelligence in pursuit of a long-promised productivity boom. Early evidence is suggesting the gains may stall for a surprisingly familiar reason: human attention. Research into what analysts now describe as ‘AI brain fry’ [...]
The cost of living crisis is the fault of the public sector, not billionaires March 5, 2026 The Green's newest MP was quick to blame billionaires for the cost of living crisis. Has she looked at the public sector, asks Paul Ormerod.
Economy bogged down by low-performing firms February 23, 2026 The UK economy is suffering from an ever-lengthening tail of low productivity businesses, according to a new report from BCG. Between 1997 and 2023, the number of firms below the 25th productivity percentile nearly doubled, rising from 444,500 to 873,000, while the total number of firms increased by 70 per cent. At the other end [...]
The Debate: Is working from home making us less productive? February 18, 2026 Nigel Farage has called for a nationwide "attitudinal change" over working from home amid sluggish UK productivity. Could he have a point?
The Debate: Should annual leave be enforced at Christmas? December 17, 2025 Should it be mandatory to take annual leave at Christmas? We put two office workers head to head in this week's Debate.
Budget chaos takes toll on October growth as ‘prospects remain poor’ December 9, 2025 The UK economy is expected to have grown by just 0.1 per cent in October as firms grappled with Budget speculation and uncertainty, analysts have said. A Bloomberg poll of City economists predicted the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will pencil in next to no growth for the month. The expected slowdown is set to [...]
Voters blame Labour for tax hikes amid gloomy outlook December 2, 2025 A majority of voters believe that the raft of tax-raising measures unveiled at last week’s Budget prove that Labour has failed to fix the public finances after more than year in office. Senior Labour officials including Chancellor Rachel Reeves have suggested that the government faced constraints on public finances as a result of international trade [...]
Starmer denies misleading public as fresh row with OBR erupts December 1, 2025 Prime Minister Keir Starmer has denied accusations that Chancellor Rachel Reeves misled cabinet colleagues – and the country – over the state of public finances in the lead-up to the Budget as tax rumours hinged on the belief that there was a £30bn shortfall in the fiscal headroom. In a press conference at a nursery [...]
UK construction productivity still stuck in the 90s, warns industry body November 21, 2025 Productivity in Britain’s construction sector is now lower than in 1997, according to a new report. Decades of under-investment have left delivery capacity “dangerously thin”, a new report by Oxford Economics for the Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA), Half-Built Britain, has warned. CPA chief Steven Mulholland said the report should serve as a “wake-up call” for [...]
Productivity growth twitchy in wake-up call for OBR and Reeves November 13, 2025 Productivity levels stuttered in the third quarter of the year, an initial estimate has shown, subverting the Chancellor’s hopes of boosting output in the UK economy. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Thursday morning that quarterly growth in output per hour rates was 0.7 per cent, the highest level since the end of [...]