The UK picked a bad year to have a political crisis in 2022. The markets were already jittery because the global economy was struggling to recover from COVID. The war in Ukraine drove up energy costs, leading to high inflation and a cost of living crisis in many developed economies. In the UK, these pressures had combined with the effects of Brexit to sharply raise the cost of doing business.
Then, in early July, Boris Johnson was forced to resign as prime minister, ushering Liz Truss into office. Her administration’s inaugural budget in September led to an economic shock as markets gave their judgement overnight. On the back of this, business confidence collapsed.
This was the backdrop to our annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2022 (Gem) survey. We surveyed just over 10,000 people in the UK between June and late September (3,000 phone interviews and 7,000 web surveys). We found the UK was in the midst of an uncertain summer that made people less inclined to start businesses. The nation has duly lost ground in the entrepreneurial stakes to rival economies, though there are a few positives buried in the data as well.
