On the day it was confirmed by the Office of National Statistics that the UK economy had grown by 0.1% during the final quarter of 2025, we were proud to welcome the Bank of England to our London office for an economic briefing event in partnership with BusinessLDN.
Attendees of the sold-out event heard from Lai Wah Co, Deputy Agent for the Bank of England's Greater London Network; Alexander Jan, Chair of Central District Alliance; and partner and head of Gateley’s London office Richard Healey, as the trio shared insights on how business is perceiving the current economic conditions, the impact it was having and what could be expected from 2026.
The audience heard about how caution was the order of the day for hospitality and retail businesses, whilst capital providers were choosing to sit on their cash and were being careful about how they deploy it. However, whilst a degree of caution remained, Richard outlined how corporate activity had started to resume this calendar year, after a quieter period towards the end of 2025 as the market awaited the fallout of the last Autumn budget. Despite mandates taking longer to win, this was encouraging given that transactional activity was up year-on-year for the previous financial year before the market braced itself for the budget.
Elsewhere, the panel scrutinised inflation and the jobs market. With proposed policy action set to bring down energy costs, inflation is forecast to slow quite quickly in coming months. Similarly, it was discussed that the job market is beginning to soften as employers think more critically before recruiting, whilst wage growth is set to moderate and is predicted to dip below 3.5% in the private sector.
No business and economic update in this current climate would be complete without a discussion on AI, with the panel concluding that the opportunities and challenges of AI will likely be felt sooner and more profoundly in the capital than in other cities given the industrial mix of London’s economy.
