The forgotten middle steps up

This week there were more signs of unease for the economy. We’re hearing conflicting messages about when hostilities in the Middle East might come to an end.

But alarm bells about the future impact on the UK economy are starting to ring. The National Farmers' Union has warned that food prices in the UK are likely to go up as a result of the conflict, starting with tomatoes and cucumbers and then followed by milk. Fuel prices also look set to rise further.

The Business Leader Summit we are hosting in London today can hopefully provide some optimism in these challenging times.

We have more than 850 of the UK’s most dynamic mid-sized business founders, CEOs and investors in one place, at Central Hall, Westminster, in London.

These are the champions of the UK’s ‘forgotten middle’, the SMEs that can kickstart our country’s economic growth. They are often neglected by both policymakers and the media, but statistically they do so much of the heavy lifting in our economy.

If we can help these ambitious people scale, the results should be very tangible.

As you read this, the Summit will be underway. We will of course, give you an update on how it went in next week’s newsletter!

Recently I attended an event that is very much aligned with what our Summit hopes to achieve. I went to tech firm Sage’s new offices near Tower Bridge in London, to hear CEO Steve Hare unveil his company’s new SME Pulse surveys.

The surveys offer data to help businesses, journalists and policymakers alike understand the financial health of the SME sector.

For example, its latest Performance Pulse found that SMEs’ real revenues grew by 3.3 per cent in Q4 2025, year on year (ahead of a UK economy that grew by 1.0 per cent over the same period). Though worryingly, Productivity was down, -2.6 per cent.

Interestingly, its Annual Workforce Pulse found a 2 per cent fall in employment in the under-18s last year and a 5.1 per cent rise in the headcount of workers aged 65+ (compared to 2022).

Sage creates the Pulses by aggregating anonymised data from its clients. It is a dataset drawn from around 350,000 companies, for whom it does payroll and accountancy work.

SMEs create around two thirds of the employment in the UK, Hare pointed out, so this is a vital sector, even though they get less attention than very large companies.

You can access the Pulse reports here.

Stronger SME performance is essential for national growth, Hare pointed out. That’s exactly the sentiment you’ll hear at our Summit, where we plan to provide some of the answers, as we help our attendees to scale with confidence.

If you want a detailed, forensic account of how to grow a global company, take a listen to the latest episode of the Business Leader Podcast. Sir Richard Harpin speaks to Gary Lubner about his time as CEO of Belron (better known in the UK as Autoglass).

In fact, its brand naming strategy across different territories is just one area that Lubner explains. Lubner describes how he and his team scaled the vehicle glass giant from a value of €200m to €24bn over 23 years.

And you will even get to listen to him sing the famous Autoglass jingle in a duet with Richard. It’s a shame the Grammys season is over...

Guess the year

• Tea rationing officially ends
• The world's first commercial nuclear power station at Calder Hall in Cumbria gets the government green light
• The last London tram runs
• First official UK Singles Chart published
• Austin-Healey, Russell Hobbs and Holiday Inn are founded in this year

You'll find the answer at the bottom of this page

What happened this week?

1. The UK’s manufacturers have suffered the sharpest one-month acceleration in costs since the aftermath of Black Wednesday in 1992 as conflict in the Middle East has driven up oil prices. The closely watched purchasing managers’ index (PMI) lays bare the impact of the conflict on the UK economy, with growth slowing sharply across manufacturing and services and costs rising. It happened in the same week as the ONS confirmed that UK inflation remained unchanged at 3 per cent last month.
2. Revolut surged to a record profit last year as it won more customers, setting up Britain’s biggest fintech for an aggressive expansion after securing a full UK banking licence. The company on Tuesday reported that pre-tax profit climbed 57 per cent to £1.7bn last year, as revenues jumped to £4.5bn from £3.1bn in 2024.
3. Huel, the meal shake and food replacement brand, is set to be acquired by the French food group Danone in a roughly €1bn deal that leaves its entrepreneurial founder and celebrity backers in line for a bumper payday. You can hear our discussion with the company's CEO about Huel's unique recruitment, marketing and growth strategy here.
4. A Los Angeles jury has handed down an unprecedented win for a young woman who sued Meta and YouTube over her childhood addiction to social media. Jurors found that Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, owner of YouTube, intentionally built addictive social media platforms that harmed the 20-year old's mental health.
5. Households in the UK will soon be able to buy “plug-in” solar panels in shops, the Government has said. Ministers say the appliances will take money off energy bills and support Britain’s transition to net zero. Marketing guru Rory Sutherland pointed out in a recent interview that solar technology would only become mainstream when you could see it for sale in the aisles of major shops. This may be coming to pass now...

Weekend reading

🤰 The incredible true story of the at-home pregnancy test

A young designer named Margaret Crane crashed a boardroom in 1967 with a scrappy little box and accidentally revolutionised women’s health while drying her soggy dress by a radiator. Her DIY pregnancy test sparked a global industry worth hundreds of millions, yet she was sidelined, paid basically nothing, and watched others take the credit for decades. Now, after years of being the unsung genius behind that little stick, her story is finally getting its long-overdue plot twist.

🅿️ What went wrong for NCP?

One of the UK's biggest car park companies collapsed into administration this week, leaving almost 700 jobs at risk. For many, their first reaction to the news was bafflement. How could a company that charged as much as £65 for a day's parking fail to turn a profit? So where did it all go wrong for National Car Parks, and what could its future look like?

And finally

We often investigate how well British business ideas can translate across the Atlantic to find success in the States. But sometimes it works the other way round.

In a forthcoming podcast, you will hear the story of Matt Pohlson and his business Omaze, which organises lotteries for dream homes. It’s a company born in the USA, but now big over here.

Another nice example of this phenomenon (or its cultural equivalent at least) is the launch of Saturday Night Live in the UK. The show is a comedy staple in the US, which has made stars of its troupe of comedians over the years, from Chevy Chase and Bill Murray to Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell. The winning format is a mixture of political satire, live and recorded comedy sketches and music.

Now Sky has launched the UK iteration, which premiered on Saturday with notable alumni of the US version Tina Fey hosting (incidentally, the aforementioned Omaze and Autoglass were name-checked in the episode).

One of the main sketches mocked prime minister Kier Starmer’s relationship with Trump. Even while busy with a war in the Middle East, the president found time to share the sketch on his Truth social media channel.

Initial reviews have been fairly positive. But countless entrepreneurs have warned us in our Business Leader interviews that despite our common language, American sensibilities are very different to ours (Will Beckett of Hawksmoor and Matt Grech-Smith of Swingers are two who spring to mind).

That’s why the US can be a graveyard for plucky UK companies. So let's see if an American comedy format can keep us laughing long enough to establish itself over here.

The answer to our question is 1952.