Proportion of UK businesses engaging in innovation drops

Official survey finds that only 36 per cent of UK businesses are “innovation active”

The proportion of UK businesses who are “innovation active” has dropped by nine percentage points due to reasons such as Covid-19, energy prices and Brexit, according to an official survey.

In 2020-22, 36 per cent of UK businesses were innovation active, down from 45 per cent in 2018-20, according to the government’s 2023 Innovation Survey, which is carried out every two years.