Chief financial officers at major UK firms are more anxious about competitiveness and productivity than at any point since 2014, according to Deloitte\u2019s latest quarterly CFO survey \u2014 a sign of mounting business unease ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves\u2019s November budget.<\/p>\n
Reuters with the info. <\/p>\n
The July\u2013September poll showed corporate worries over competitiveness now rival geopolitical risks, even as global tensions eased after US President Donald Trump\u2019s new trade deals softened the impact of his tariff measures.<\/p>\n
CFOs are prioritising cost-cutting, cash preservation, and debt reduction, Deloitte\u2019s UK chief economist Ian Stewart said.<\/p>\n
While the survey didn\u2019t directly ask about tax policy, businesses remain wary following last year\u2019s rise in social security contributions, and many expect Reeves to raise taxes again on November 26 to meet fiscal goals. A record 84% of CFOs foresee operating costs climbing in the coming year \u2014 the highest reading in more than four years.<\/p>\n
A separate BDO report found firms slowed hiring in September amid cost pressures and budget uncertainty, though optimism improved slightly thanks to stronger order books and expectations of increased US investment. <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
The findings highlight deepening corporate caution ahead of the UK budget, with expectations of further tax hikes and sticky inflation likely to weigh on investment and hiring in coming quarters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chief financial officers at major UK firms are more anxious about competitiveness and productivity than at any point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69,58883],"class_list":["post-75203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-uk-cfo-competitiveness-fears"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}