Industry reacts to Autumn Budget 2025

Last week the UK Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered the highly anticipated Autumn Budget for 2025. As industry leaders and the public navigate what this budget means to them, Cundall’s sector leads have reacted to how the Treasury’s decisions can impact their sector.  

Frances Brown, Partner and Global Workplace Sector Lead:

Workplace

Although the OBR forecasted 0.3% slower growth of GDP, the Chancellor reiterated the ambition of beating the projections "by increasing the investment, not cutting it".  

London’s commercial market is not shy of opportunity, and the city remains home to the best talent. What we want from the Government’s future policies is to make investing into the UK an attractive prospect. We hope to see more detailed measures to unlock investment going forward, so that the built environment can deliver on decarbonisation of existing buildings and deliver high quality office spaces that businesses need to thrive. This is important for places like London where occupier demand is high, but also valuable to other parts of the UK that are working towards growing their local economies.  

Andrew Somerville, Global Science and Technology Sector Lead:

Science and Technology  

In recent months, we have seen pharmaceutical companies reconsidering their expansion into the UK, the most significant being AstraZeneca and Merck. We hope this serves as a wake-up call for the Government to focus on improving university funding models and bringing investment into the country to improve the life sciences ecosystem. From conversations I have had with industry peers, there is a consensus: while academic science from our universities remains strong, funding and efforts must be focused on turning research into products that patients can actually use.  

Michael Florence, Associate Director, Civil Engineering:

Highways and Active Travel

After decades of advocacy for devolution, it is good news for local councils when it comes to developing transportation and infrastructure. The central Government has allocated £15.6bn to local councils for the period of 2027-28 to 2031-32 as part of the delivery of Transport for City Regions (TCR) settlements. This investment is a significant increase from the £5.7bn in 2022-23 to 2026-27 for the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS). Today's Budget reiterated the government's investment in the Lower Thames Crossing and its continued support for the Northern Powerhouse Rail.  

Whilst this increase in spend should most definitely be welcomed by the local councils, there needs to be a strategy in place on how this money will be utilised and how the councils should react to this increase. It presents an opportunity to support the development of the North East and England’s largest city/regions further,  facilitating better multi-modal transport links and connections between regions and areas. This would not only result in increased investment into the region but would also increase retention and recruitment of talent.  

As the climate crisis confronts us with increasing aggression, any new infrastructure should prioritise reducing carbon throughout the design and construction process. We need to retain material, using innovative approaches to build with deconstruction and reuse in mind going forward.

Keith Richardson, Principal Engineer and Defence Sector Lead

Defence

The UK government, as part of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and recent budget announcements, have committed to increasing defence spending to 2.7% of the GDP by 2027 with the ambition to reach 3% in the next Parliament. Further commitments have indicated an increase to 3.5% of GDP by 2035, with a further commitment from NATO members at the Hague Summit in June 2025 to 5% of GDP (3.5% defence + 1.5% resilience), showing large-scale investments in this sector.  

Defence is being positioned as a strategic priority, both for national security and economic renewal, with a fundamental shift to warfighting readiness, deterrence, and industrial resilience.  

The Defence Investment Plan (DIP) is the next critical piece of the puzzle as it tries to set out how the MoD will allocate resources to deliver the SDR’s vision of a modern, warfighting-ready force. The message is clear: defence is no longer a peripheral concern but a central pillar of national strategy.  

We hope this investment plan incorporates fundamental changes, including the need to improve the lived experience for current and future servicing personnel, incorporate Net Zero Carbon (NZC) focused initiatives, but most importantly, maintain operational output and readiness. The choices made now will define the nation’s defence posture for decades to come.