Closing the AI skills gap is an £80 billion opportunity Opinion Smart use of AI could add £80bn in productivity gains to the British economy by 2035, but too few businesses have the workforce to deploy it effectively, says Steve Rigby The daily AI discourse moves between a few regular topics: eye-watering investment in frontier models, soaring compute costs, crippling cyberattacks and the unknowable impact of [...]
Steve Rigby: Burnham has a chance bring confidence back to British business Opinion If Andy Burnham focuses on AI, devolution and regional development, he has a chance to turn British stagnation around – and his record in Manchester is cause for cautious optimism, says Steve Rigby The transition to our seventh prime minister in a decade is now well underway. Since 1721, we have had only 58 Prime [...]
Tony Blair has issued a call to arms – but will Labour listen? Opinion Tony Blair’s blockbuster intervention is a reminder of a time when the government believed business was part of the solution to Britain’s problems, says Steve Rigby For entrepreneurs, looking back can be anathema. Everything is about the future – the next customer, the next acquisition, the carefully-plotted route towards a big-money exit. But for those [...]
When companies can outspend countries, they set the political agenda November 5, 2025 When Nvidia is bigger than the GDP of Germany, the implications for national sovereignty are deeply uncomfortable, says Steve Rigby We like to imagine that the great contests of innovation are fought between nations: the US versus China; Europe versus Asia; governments vying for technological leadership. That framing is already outdated. The real race is [...]
Hiking minimum wage as graduate pay stagnates is incentivising mediocrity August 27, 2025 Hiking the minimum wage as graduate salaries flatline is creating a system where ambition is no longer rewarded, writes Steve Rigby.
I’m one of Britain’s highest taxpayers – a wealth tax would be the last straw July 8, 2025 Many patriotic high taxpayers like Steve Rigby accept that they work 50 per cent of their time for the government. A punitive wealth tax raiding assets that have already been taxed multiple times risks upending the social contract and driving businesses and jobs away The drumbeat for a wealth tax grows louder by the day, [...]
Growth is now near impossible. Here are 7 pleas for Reeves’ Spring Budget February 19, 2025 Growth is impossible if we continue on as we are but the Spring Budget is a chance for change, writes Steve Rigby.
Scrapping non-dom status will make some of London a ghost town March 5, 2024 If we start taxing non-UK income and assets, we may as well pack non-doms bags for them. There is a better way, says Steve Rigby Are the leaks suggesting Jeremy Hunt is ready to scrap tax rules for non-doms to be taken seriously? Or was this one of the now-traditional pre-Budget exercises in kite-flying to [...]
