Small businesses are grappling with significant hurdles when it comes to hiring, new data has revealed.
Small and mid-sized businesses have always won on something enterprise giants can’t copy: the personal relationship with their customers. But now those same customers expect AI-powered experiences as part of the service, and the tools on the market are built for companies with entire AI teams, six-month budgets, and enterprise-scale infrastructure. SMBs can’t afford to build that, but they also can’t afford not to have it.
There is a growing disconnect between employee expectations and what organisations are delivering, putting pressure on HR leaders to rethink hiring, leadership development, and retention strategies. Research from Personio, Europe’s leading HR software provider for small and mid-sized businesses, reveals that more than half (54%) of employees in the UK are considering a job change within the next year as the gap between expectation and reality contributes to attrition.
Time pressures are limiting the ability of small businesses to focus on growth, according to new American Express research, with over two-fifths (43%) of small businesses looking to AI to help tackle this challenge.
Dr Florence Concepcion, Senior Quantum Engineer at Aquark Technologies has been awarded Innovate UK funding as part of the Future Leader Fellowship. The four-year fellowship will provide £1.9 million to support Dr Concepcion’s £2.7 million project to advance research in the miniaturisation and scalability of vacuum systems for scalable quantum technologies.
Anthemis, an early-stage investment firm, and Cambridge AI Venture Partners (CAIVP), a team comprised of industry experts Sir Andy Hopper, Prof. Rob Mullins, Dr Gavin Ferris, and Mike Halsall, have announced the launch of CommonAI, a collaborative engineering and computing platform for AI-enabled startups, enterprises, engineers, academics, and investors.
MicroFactory has raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from a set of visionary backers, including Clement Delangue, the founder of Hugging Face, and Naval Ravikant, early investor in Uber and Twitter, giving the company a post-money cap of $30 million.
There is a growing disconnect between employee expectations and what organisations are delivering, putting pressure on HR leaders to rethink hiring, leadership development, and retention strategies.
UK SMEs and micro businesses continue to be dissatisfied with the level of proactive advice and personal service they receive from their main bank, according to new research from RFI Global.
360Learning has launched its L&D Performance Academy – a free, ATD-accredited, interactive online Academy built to help learning and development professionals future-proof their careers and drive measurable business impact in the age of AI.
OX Delivers, the UK-based electric vehicle startup, and Wahu Mobility, Ghana’s manufacturer of durable and connected electric bikes, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to explore opportunities to enhance electric mobility solutions that boost business, create jobs, and make a positive sustainable impact in Ghana.
Research from Towergate Employee Benefits reveals that only 14% of employers strongly agree that they have a good understanding of their employees’ needs across all four pillars of health and wellbeing: physical, mental, social, and financial.
Anthemis, an early-stage investment firm, and Cambridge AI Venture Partners (CAIVP), a team comprised of industry experts Sir Andy Hopper, Prof. Rob Mullins, Dr Gavin Ferris, and Mike Halsall, announce the launch of CommonAI, a collaborative engineering and computing platform for AI-enabled startups, enterprises, engineers, academics, and investors.
BIOWEG, a German biotechnology company developing high-performance, biodegradable ingredients to replace intentionally added acrylic polymer based microplastics, has closed a €16 million Series A round.
Clarity, an AI-powered customer-experience and voice-of-customer (VoC) platform for highly regulated industries, has raised $12 million in new funding. The round is led by Prosus Ventures with participation from STV Al Fund (backed by Google), Sukna Ventures, Wamda Capital, Neo, Oraseya Capital, Phaze Ventures, Propeller, Tech Invest Com, and angels from OpenAI and Google.
For years, job hopping was hailed as the fastest route to a higher salary. But new figures suggest that advantage is vanishing, making the latest workplace trend ‘job hugging’ (staying loyal to one company) a more rewarding career move.
Jam 7, creator of the Agentic Marketing Platform (AMP), has closed its seed funding round led by Stephen Altman, founder of New World Private Equity Partners. The investment will accelerate Jam 7’s mission to transform how B2B tech companies innovate, compete, and grow.
Data from SproutSocial reveals that short-form video delivers the highest ROI over other marketing trends. Generationally, expectations and engagement levels vary, but everyone is consuming short-form content across all platforms.
If you told me four years ago, I’d be running a thriving creative hub in the middle of Yorkshire – supporting nearly 50 local makers, hosting events, and heading to the House of Lords as part of the UK’s SmallBiz100 – I’d have laughed and said nope not me!
Aberdeen’s ONE Tech Hub has welcomed two ambitious tenants, energy tech company Energy Insider and AI startup VetAI, further cementing the hub’s role as the home of the region’s digital tech sector, one of the UK’s fastest growing.
