Research and analysis

Executive summary: business perceptions survey 2024

Updated 23 October 2025

This year’s survey took place a few years after the transition period for the UK leaving the European Union (EU) had ended. This means that some businesses will be operating under new or revised regulations. The survey also took place during a cost of living crisis, during which material costs and energy prices are higher for many. 

The survey covers several topics. These include:

• the businesses’ performance and challenges over the last 12 months
• their attitudes towards regulation
• the effort and cost of dealing with regulation 

Businesses were also asked about their use of external support to comply with regulation, their experiences of dealing with regulators, and their views on the government’s approach to regulation.

Survey methodology

For the main stage of the survey, a total of 2,000 telephone interviews were conducted using computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), which lasted an average of 25 minutes. Interviews were carried out between 21 October 2024 and 24 January 2025. As in previous waves, all interviews were conducted with the person responsible for legal and compliance issues.

As there were some changes to the questionnaire for this wave, the survey was cognitively tested. This was followed by pilot testing, with monitoring and evaluation of the questionnaire flow and respondent understanding, carried out by the Industrial Facts and Forecasting research team. Data was then sense-checked, and pilot findings collated. Changes made post cognitive and pilot testing were minor.

The interviews were with a random stratified sample of private sector UK businesses, with selection based on size, sector and country. This information was sourced from the Market Location database, with an expected completion ratio of 1:8 (one interview completed for every 8 sample records).

By country, 1,712 interviews were conducted with businesses in England, 53 in Northern Ireland, 156 in Scotland and 79 in Wales. Findings for Northern Ireland should therefore be treated with caution due to a low base size.

As in previous waves, interviews were weighted to the profile of UK private sector businesses by size and sector as shown in the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) Business Population Estimates 2024. This is further covered in the accompanying technical report.

As longitudinal comparison is critical to the aims of this survey, much of the methodology remains the same as in previous waves: sampling, questionnaire design, fieldwork and weighting process.

Where there were additional questions, time-series comparisons with previous surveys are not valid and are therefore not included in the report.

Business performance and challenges

More businesses reported that their sales turnover had increased (41%) than decreased (32%) in the 12 months prior to the fieldwork, in line with the 2022 survey. The proportion of businesses who had increased their headcount was also slightly higher than the proportion who had decreased headcount in the past year (22% vs 19%), and higher than the proportion who had increased headcount in 2022 (18%).

Rising costs appear to be affecting businesses in 2024. The most commonly cited challenges for businesses were operational costs (79%) and the level of tax (51%). Operational costs were an addition to the questionnaire this time which means the results for this question are not directly comparable with 2022.

Overall attitudes towards regulation

Turning to our 3 key measures of regulatory burden, almost half of businesses (47%) agreed that regulation is an obstacle to success, which was not significantly different from in 2022 (45%). The proportion of businesses expecting the burden of regulation to increase in the next 12 months increased to 52% (from 45% in 2022). Just 7% of businesses cited compliance with regulation as their greatest challenge, which was in line with 2022 (6%) but significantly lower than in previous years.

The key factors driving businesses to view regulation as an obstacle were their views on whether regulations are easy to comply with and whether regulation is fair and proportionate.

The 2 most important motivators for businesses in complying with regulation were complying with the law (92% considered this essential or very important) and maintaining their reputation with customers (91%), in line with the findings of the 2022 survey.

The regulatory areas considered to be the most challenging for companies to comply with were health and safety (58% found this challenging among relevant businesses), employment law and rights (58%) and planning rules and regulations (57%). This was a new question added in 2024.

Two in 5 businesses (41%) felt the new regulatory arrangements after EU Exit were more challenging compared to previous arrangements and only 1% of businesses felt the new arrangements were less challenging.

Key driver analysis

A linear regression model was used to investigate what drives businesses to agree with the statement “the overall level of regulation in the UK is an obstacle to your businesses’ success”. The 3 most important drivers are:

• businesses that agreed it is easy to comply with regulation were more likely to disagree that regulation is an obstacle to their success
• businesses that agreed regulation is fair and proportionate were more likely to disagree that regulation is an obstacle to their success
• businesses that said complying with regulation presents a challenge to their business were more likely to agree that regulation is an obstacle to their success

For more detail on other drivers and the methodology see Appendix A and the accompanying technical report.

Effort of dealing with regulation

The amount of time that businesses reported spending on compliance per month increased slightly in 2024 to 8.0 days per month on average, up from 6.6 days in 2022. The amount of time spent increased with the size of the business.

The proportion of businesses reporting an increase in the cost of compliance over the 12 months prior to the fieldwork also increased, to 65% (from 58% in 2022), as did the proportion of businesses agreeing that the time taken on compliance is a burden, from 58% in 2022 to 63% in 2024.

As well as the time it takes to comply, respondents were also asked whether they considered other aspects of regulatory compliance be a burden. The other aspects most likely to be considered a burden were keeping up to date with information about which regulations a business has to comply with (65%), completing paperwork and keeping records (62%) and having to provide the same information more than once (61%).

External support

More than 9 in 10 businesses (93%) used some form of external support to help in complying with regulation. The most common sources of help were external business advisers or consultants, official government or regulator websites, and trade associations or business organisations.

The majority of those who had used official government or regulator websites agreed that they found the information they needed (62%), they were able to use that information (74%) and that it helped them do what they needed to do (71%).

Businesses using external advisers to help with regulatory compliance were asked to estimate how much they spent on this support. On average, employers reported spending £10,745 on advisers, considerably higher than the mean spend of £6,100 reported in 2022 (£6,800 when adjusted for inflation). Larger businesses tended to spend more on regulatory advice than smaller organisations.

The main reasons for using advisers to help in complying with regulation were because they have more knowledge or are more specialist (88%), because businesses want assurance that they are compliant (84%) and because they want independent advice (76%).

Perception of the government’s approach to regulation

Just over half of businesses (53%) agreed that it is generally clear what the purpose of regulation is. However, responses were more muted to a series of other statements regarding the government’s approach to regulation, including that most regulation is fair and proportionate and that it is easy to comply with.

Respondents were more negative in this year’s survey than in 2022, particularly regarding the perception of regulation as fair and proportionate (35% agree, compared to 45% in 2022), agreement that government understands business well enough to regulate (20% compared to 28% in 2022), and that the government’s approach facilitates the implementation of new products, processes or business models (18% agree, versus 25% in 2022).

Businesses in the agriculture, mining and energy sector generally had less positive views of the government’s approach to regulation, being lower than average for 6 out of the 10 measures covered by the research.

Dealing with regulators

Perceptions of regulators were somewhat more negative in 2024 than 2 years ago, having seen a fall in agreement with 7 of the 8 statements about regulators asked in the last survey. Just 2 in 5 businesses now agreed that regulators helped them to comply with regulation and that they had confidence in the advice and guidance their regulators provided (both 41%).

The largest decline was for published guidance being easy to locate, which fell from 47% agreement in 2022 to 36% in 2024, a fall of 11 percentage points.

Larger businesses were generally more positive about regulators and micro businesses were the least positive. By sector, hotels and catering were the most positive while businesses in the retail and distribution sector and property, management, and business services had more negative perceptions of several of the statements about regulators.

One in 5 businesses had challenged a decision made by a regulator (19%). Of those who had, only 1 in 6 (16%) found the process easy while two-thirds said it was difficult (67%).

Innovative businesses

Innovative businesses were defined as those that had implemented a new or significantly improved product, process or business model in the 12 months prior to the fieldwork, or had started working in new business markets in the 12 months prior to the fieldwork. A quarter (26%) of the businesses surveyed fell within this definition, as in 2022.

Innovative companies were more likely to find certain regulatory areas challenging to comply with, namely employment law and rights (62% vs 57% of non-innovative businesses), data protection rules (52% vs 42%) and product safety standards (51% vs 41%).

Innovative businesses were also more likely to say they found the new regulatory arrangements after EU Exit were more challenging compared to previous arrangements (53% compared to 37% of non-innovative businesses).

High growth businesses

High growth businesses were defined as those that had increased their staff headcount and sales turnover in the 12 months prior to the fieldwork. Around 1 in 7 (15%) of the businesses surveyed fell within this definition. Results are not comparable to previous years, as the prior definition included businesses that had increased their staff headcount or sales turnover, not necessarily both.

There was a strong correlation between high growth businesses and innovative businesses, with high growth businesses being twice as likely to be innovative as non-high growth businesses (49% vs 22%). High growth businesses were also more likely to have increased their capital investment in the 12 months prior to the fieldwork (53% vs 21% of non-high growth businesses) and to have increased exports (9% vs 3%).

In terms of challenges, high growth businesses were more likely to consider a number of things to present a challenge to their business, including the level of tax (59% vs 50% of non-high growth businesses) and staff recruitment or retention (52% vs 36%). They were less likely to find attracting and retaining customers a challenge than non-high growth companies (31% vs 40%).