Published Wed, Sep 2, 2026 \u00b7 08:20 AM<\/p>\n
[LONDON] Britain\u2019s economy is set to grow a bit faster than previously expected in 2026 after withstanding the initial impact of the Iran war but firms remain wary about investment, the British Chambers of Commerce said on Tuesday (Sep 1).<\/p>\n
\u201cOur latest forecast paints an uncertain outlook for the\u00a0UK\u00a0economy. Businesses have absorbed another major geopolitical shock and shown real resilience,\u201d said David Bharier, the BCC\u2019s deputy director of economics and insights.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut growth remains subdued, and rests on consumption, not investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BCC said it expects the economy to expand by 1 per cent in 2026, slightly better than a previous forecast of 0.9 per cent growth made in June<\/p>\n
Business investment is set to fall by 0.2 per cent this year, a smaller drop than the previous forecast for a fall of 2.2 per cent. Investment is projected to grow by 0.4 per cent in 2027<\/p>\n
Inflation is anticipated to peak at 3.6 per cent by the end of the year, down from 3.8 per cent in the previous forecast<\/p>\n
The BCC said higher household energy costs, caused by the Iran war, and risk of a rise in food prices due to a drought this summer were the main drivers of inflation<\/p>\n
Unemployment is forecast to reach 5 per cent by the end of 2026 and hit 5.4 per cent next year. Youth joblessness is expected to reach a high of 17.6 per cent in 2027.<\/p>\n
UK\u00a0exports are projected to grow 0.4 per cent in 2026, reflecting some easing in tensions in the Middle East, before expanding more quickly in 2027 and 2028. REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published Wed, Sep 2, 2026 \u00b7 08:20 AM [LONDON] Britain\u2019s economy is set to grow a bit faster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,1893,54,55],"class_list":["post-757284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-uk-economy","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}