Growth sectors
Those sectors of the UK economy which may be of interest to investors following the Budget, according to Marcus Brookes, head of multi-manager for Schroders, will include technology and infrastructure.
These sectors are set to get a government fillip in the form of an expansion of investment in the National Productivity Investment Fund, launched in November 2016, to provide an additional £23bn of investment over five years.
In the latest Budget, Mr Hammond pledged to expand this to more than £31bn and run it for an additional year.
Mr Page states: “The key question is whether this will provide a boost to the economy. To our minds, targeted infrastructure spending is welcome against a background of weak productivity growth.”
Furthermore, UK companies involved in research and development (R&D) also look to be beneficiaries of the government’s pre-Brexit largesse, with a £2.3bn further investment into R&D, and an increase in the main R&D tax credit to 12 per cent.
According to Mr Hammond: “This is taking the first strides towards the ambition of our industrial strategy to drive up R&D investment across the economy to 2.4 per cent of GDP.”
Mr Brookes adds: “Technology investment would be very welcome, as plenty of investors are looking for opportunities in the UK.”
Smaller businesses too will receive a boost, with more than £500m pledged towards a range of initiatives from artificial intelligence to 5G, as well as more than £20bn of investment unlocked to be allocated to UK scale-up businesses.
Chris Gorst, Open Up Challenge Prize lead at Nesta, comments: “As the Budget noted, in 2018 the second phase of Nesta's Open Up Challenge will support groundbreaking fintech innovations for small businesses, powered by new open banking functionality.
“For many entrepreneurs, the way small business banking currently works is looking increasingly anachronistic. Too often it seems unnecessarily painful, costly and opaque rather than a service that supports them to fulfil their potential.
“The UK is a world leader in fintech and the world leader in open banking, and is ideally placed to transform this market.”
People power
Mr Hammond spoke of success in bolstering Britain’s workforce, given there are still 1.4 million people in Britain still out of work.
He said: “I welcome the OBR forecast there will be another 600,000 people in work by 2022. But I want work to be good quality, and well paid. And regrettably our productivity performance continues to disappoint.”
The OBR revised the outlook for productivity growth and business investment downwards, offsetting any positive gains from more people in work than in 2010.
According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), employment has been trending upwards for both men and women since the 1970s. The year-on-year figures also look rosy:
