There’s a particular feeling you get when you’re a business owner and the Chancellor stands up to deliver the Budget.
You listen, you make a few notes, you try to work out which announcements might affect you, and somewhere in the back of your mind you’re calculating what it could mean for your business over the next twelve months.
It’s not always the most exciting part of running a business, but it’s an important one.
The latest Labour Budget, announced on 28 October 2026, has certainly given business owners plenty to think about. There are measures designed to encourage entrepreneurship, support investment and help certain sectors, alongside changes that will affect employment costs, business taxes and the way some companies operate.
Having spent years building businesses, working with teams and navigating the ups and downs of the commercial world, I always look at these announcements from one particular perspective:
Does this actually make it easier for people to start, run and grow a business in Britain?
And I think the answer is a little more complicated than the headlines might suggest.
1. There are some encouraging signals for entrepreneurs
One of the announcements that caught my attention was the introduction of a new Founders’ Relief.
From April 2027, eligible founders of qualifying high-growth, innovative businesses will be able to benefit from a 10% Capital Gains Tax rate on up to £10 million of lifetime gains.
There’s also additional support being introduced for start-ups and growing businesses, including increased funding capacity for the British Business Bank, improvements to research and development tax relief and more generous employee share option arrangements.
I like the principle behind this.
Starting a business involves risk. You can leave a secure job, invest your own money, spend years building something and still have no guarantee that it will work.
When somebody takes that risk, creates employment and builds something valuable, I think there should be a strong incentive to encourage them to keep doing it here in the UK.
However, there’s an important distinction between announcing an incentive and making it accessible.
The criteria for Founders’ Relief will matter enormously. Many small business owners won’t necessarily operate in the high-growth, innovative category the scheme is designed to support.
It’s a positive development for some founders, but I’d like to see the benefits of entrepreneurial support reach a wider range of businesses too.
2. The cost of employing people remains a major consideration
For me, one of the biggest challenges facing businesses is the cost of building and maintaining a good team.
The Budget confirmed a 3.9% increase in the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates.
For employees, that’s welcome additional income at a time when household costs remain a concern.
But from an employer’s perspective, every increase in wages needs to be considered alongside the wider cost of employment.
It’s not just the salary itself. There’s employer National Insurance, pension contributions, recruitment, training, equipment and all the other costs involved in bringing someone into a business.
For a larger organisation, those increases might be absorbed across a significant workforce and turnover. For a smaller business operating on tighter margins, they can have a much more noticeable impact.
And here’s the challenge: businesses want to recruit, develop people and create opportunities. That’s how companies grow.
But if the cost of taking on another employee becomes increasingly difficult to justify, business owners may think twice before making that investment.
I don’t think this is a straightforward argument about whether wages should increase. People need to earn a fair wage, and businesses need to remain commercially sustainable.
The challenge is finding the right balance so that employers can continue creating jobs without being discouraged from doing so.
3. Support for the high street is welcome, but what about everyone else?
The Budget included further support for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses through changes to Small Business Rate Relief.
From April 2027, the threshold for 100% relief on qualifying retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England will increase from a rateable value of £12,000 to £18,000. The government also announced a two-year real-terms freeze in business rates bills for qualifying properties in those sectors.
That’s potentially meaningful support for independent shops, cafés, restaurants and other high street businesses.
But I think there’s a wider question here.
What about the manufacturers, professional services companies, technology businesses, agencies, wholesalers and countless other SMEs that don’t fall into those categories?
They employ people, pay taxes, support local economies and contribute to the wider business landscape.
A business doesn’t have to operate from a high street premises to face significant overheads.
I’d like to see a broader conversation about how we support small and medium-sized businesses across every sector, particularly those that are trying to grow, invest and create employment.
Supporting the high street is important. Supporting the wider business community is equally important.
4. Business owners need certainty, not just incentives
One thing I hear repeatedly from people running businesses is that uncertainty makes planning difficult.
You can work around higher costs. You can adjust your pricing, review your overheads and look at ways to become more efficient.
What is much harder to manage is not knowing what the rules might look like in another six or twelve months.
Businesses need to make decisions about recruitment, investment, premises, equipment and expansion. These aren’t decisions that can always be reversed quickly.
The Budget has maintained the government’s commitment to keeping the headline rate of Corporation Tax at 25%, alongside retaining full expensing for qualifying investment.
It has also adjusted capital allowances, increasing the main first-year allowance from 40% to 50%, while reducing the main writing down allowance from 14% to 12%.
There are opportunities here for businesses looking to invest, but the detail matters. Owners need to understand which reliefs apply to their circumstances and when.
I’d much rather see a consistent, predictable environment that gives businesses confidence to plan several years ahead than a series of short-term incentives that constantly require them to rethink their strategy.
Stability has real commercial value.
5. The self-employed and smaller businesses need practical support
Another announcement worth paying attention to is the increase in the tax-free Trading Allowance from £1,000 to £3,000, effective from April 2027.
For people earning smaller amounts through a side business or taking their first steps into self-employment, that’s a useful change.
I particularly like the idea of encouraging people to test an idea, build something alongside their existing employment and potentially turn it into a full-time business.
Not every entrepreneur starts with a grand business plan, significant investment or a team of employees.
Sometimes it starts with an idea, a laptop and a willingness to give something a go.
But I think practical support needs to go further.
Access to finance, manageable regulation, affordable professional advice and help navigating the administrative side of running a business can make a huge difference.
It’s one thing encouraging people to become entrepreneurs. It’s another making sure they have the support to survive those difficult first few years.
6. Ultimately, businesses need room to grow
When I look at the Budget as a business owner, I don’t expect the government to solve every challenge I face.
Running a business has never been easy, and I wouldn’t expect it to be.
There will always be economic uncertainty, changing customer expectations, rising costs and competition. That’s part of the environment we operate in.
But I do believe government has an important role in creating the conditions that allow businesses to thrive.
That means encouraging investment, supporting employment, making the tax system easier to navigate and ensuring that people who want to build businesses in Britain have a genuine opportunity to do so.
It also means listening to the people actually running those businesses.
The small business owner worrying about next month’s payroll. The entrepreneur trying to secure their first major contract. The employer deciding whether they can afford another member of staff. The founder investing everything they have into an idea they believe in.
These are the people who make the economy work every day.
My biggest takeaway as a business owner
I don’t think any Budget should be judged purely on how many announcements it contains or how impressive the headlines look.
The real test is what happens afterwards.
Do businesses feel more confident about investing? Are more people starting companies? Are employers creating jobs? Are established businesses able to expand? Are entrepreneurs choosing to build their futures here rather than elsewhere?
Those are the outcomes that matter.
There are some encouraging measures in this Budget, particularly around supporting founders, investment and certain smaller businesses. But there are also genuine concerns around employment costs, the uneven distribution of business support and the need for greater certainty.
For me, the message remains the same.
As business owners, we have to understand the environment we’re operating in, keep a close eye on the numbers and make decisions based on what is best for our own businesses.
We can’t control every government decision, economic forecast or market condition. We can control how we respond, how well we lead our teams and how prepared we are for what’s coming next.
I remain a big believer in British entrepreneurship. There are brilliant people building brilliant businesses across the country, and I want to see more of them succeed.
But if we genuinely want Britain to become a place where businesses start, grow and stay, we need to make sure the people taking those risks feel that the environment is working with them.
Because ultimately, a thriving economy isn’t built by government announcements alone. It’s built by the people who get up every morning, take a risk, employ someone, win a customer and keep building something.
Disclaimer: This is purely an opinion piece based on what I’ve read and researched following Labour’s recent budget announcement. I’ve based the policy details on the official Budget published on 28th October 2026, with business-sector reaction from ICAEW and the House of Commons Library.