{"id":61610,"date":"2025-04-30T00:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T00:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/61610\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T00:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T00:57:13","slug":"scottish-business-confidence-falls-but-remains-above-uk-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/61610\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish business confidence falls, but remains above UK average\u202f"},"content":{"rendered":"

Business confidence in Scotland fell 15 points during April to 40%, according to the latest Business Barometer from Bank of Scotland.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Companies in Scotland reported lower confidence in their own business prospects month-on-month, down four points at 61%. When taken alongside their optimism in the economy, down 25 points to 19%, this gives a headline confidence reading of 40% (vs. 55% in March).<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the next six months, businesses in Scotland identified their top target areas for growth as evolving their offering, for example by introducing new products or services (61%), investing in their team, for instance through training (46%), and entering new markets (38%).<\/p>\n

\"Financial<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Scottish business confidence has dipped this month, it continues to sit above the UK average, and it\u2019s encouraging to see firms remain focused on future growth \u2013 whether that\u2019s through product innovation or investing in their people,\u201d said Martyn Kendrick, Scotland director at Bank of Scotland Commercial Banking.<\/p>\n

\u201cScotland\u2019s economy is defined by ambitious businesses. We\u2019ll continue to support firms, of all sizes and across sectors, as they look to capitalise on new opportunities ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Business Barometer, which surveys 1,200 businesses monthly and which has been running since 2002, provides early signals about UK economic trends both regionally and nationwide.<\/p>\n

National picture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall, UK business confidence fell ten points in April to 39%.<\/p>\n

Firms\u2019 optimism in their own trading prospects dropped seven points to 50%, while their confidence in the wider economy fell 13 points to 28%.<\/p>\n

The North East of England was the most confident UK nation or region in April (59%), followed by the West Midlands (53%) and the North West (52%).<\/p>\n

Sector Insights<\/strong><\/p>\n

Confidence fell across the four broad sectors. Manufacturing confidence remained broadly unchanged from last month, falling by one point to 38%, while the construction sector saw the largest decrease in business confidence this month, declining 22 points to 26%. Retail confidence also fell by 13 points down to 45% and the service industry fell seven points to 40%, both now at three-month lows.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hann-Ju Ho, senior economist, Lloyds Commercial Banking, said: \u201cWith the announcement of global tariffs from the United States on 2nd April and the market volatility that followed, it is unsurprising that business confidence saw an impact this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, economic optimism remains higher than at the beginning of the year, showing businesses\u2019 resilience in the face of recent challenges and overall confidence is still well above the long-term average of 29%, an average taken from over 20 years of analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Business confidence in Scotland fell 15 points during April to 40%, according to the latest Business Barometer from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[31814,31815,748,31816,4884,712,31817,31818,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-61610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-april-business-report","9":"tag-bank-of-scotland-barometer","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-business-outlook-uk","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-scottish-business-confidence","15":"tag-sme-trends-scotland","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114424200899086030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}