A recent analysis on the impact of Brexit suggests that in 2023, the United Kingdom's economy was *** percent smaller than it would have been in a base scenario where the UK never left the EU. The estimated hit to the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) increases to ***** percent in 2024, and to *** percent by 2025 in this forecast. UK growth cut at start of turbulent 2025 After growing by *** percent in 2024, the UK economy is expected to grow by *** percent in 2025, down from an earlier forecast of *** percent. As of 2025, the UK economy is approximately *** percent larger than it was just before the COVID-19 pandemic five years earlier, which delivered a sudden and severe economic shock to the country. While the initial bounce back from this collapse was robust, the recovery slowed by the end of 2020, and it wasn't until late 2021 that the economy returned to its pre-pandemic size. Throughout 2022 and 2023, the economy continued to struggle, and even experienced a recession at the end of 2023. How voters feel about Brexit in 2025 Since the middle of 2021, a growing majority of voters in Britain have advised that they think Brexit was the wrong decision. As of January 2025, around ** percent thought it was wrong to leave the EU, compared with just ** percent in April 2021. By comparison, the share of Britons who think Brexit was the right decision has fallen from ** percent to ** percent in the same time period. Voters are, however, still quite divided on what relationship they want with the EU, with only ** percent supporting rejoining completely. Furthermore, Brexit has fallen behind other issues for voters such as the economy, the NHS, and immigration and the issue played a much smaller role in the 2024 election than it did in 2019.

As of January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) is no longer a member of the European Union (EU). The UK left the EU without a trade deal, and has until the end of 2020 to determine the new framework of its trade relations with the EU. This means either a free trade agreement (FTA) will need to be struck between the two parties, or the UK will fall back on trading under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. According to a study on the possible impact of these scenarios on GDP growth in the UK, after the transition period ends by the beginning of 2021, trading under WTO terms will lead to a decline of *** percent in UK GDP. Relative to this rate, if the UK trade with the EU under a FTA, the GDP is forecast to improve by * percent.

The economic landscape of the United Kingdom has been significantly shaped by the intertwined issues of Brexit, COVID-19, and their interconnected impacts. Despite the country’s robust and diverse economy, the disruptions caused by Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have created uncertainty and upheaval for both businesses and individuals. Recognizing the magnitude of these challenges, academic literature has directed its attention toward conducting immediate research in this crucial area. This study sets out to investigate key economic factors that have influenced various sectors of the UK economy and have broader economic implications within the context of Brexit and COVID-19. The factors under scrutiny include the unemployment rate, GDP index, earnings, and trade. To accomplish this, a range of data analysis tools and techniques were employed, including the Box-Jenkins method, neural network modeling, Google Trend analysis, and Twitter-sentiment analysis. The analysis encompassed different periods: pre-Brexit (2011-2016), Brexit (2016-2020), the COVID-19 period, and post-Brexit (2020-2021). The findings of the analysis offer intriguing insights spanning the past decade. For instance, the unemployment rate displayed a downward trend until 2020 but experienced a spike in 2021, persisting for a six-month period. Meanwhile, total earnings per week exhibited a gradual increase over time, and the GDP index demonstrated an upward trajectory until 2020 but declined during the COVID-19 period. Notably, trade experienced the most significant decline following both Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the impact of these events exhibited variations across the UK’s four regions and twelve industries. Wales and Northern Ireland emerged as the regions most affected by Brexit and COVID-19, with industries such as accommodation, construction, and wholesale trade particularly impacted in terms of earnings and employment levels. Conversely, industries such as finance, science, and health demonstrated an increased contribution to the UK’s total GDP in the post-Brexit period, indicating some positive outcomes. It is worth highlighting that the impact of these economic factors was more pronounced on men than on women. Among all the variables analyzed, trade suffered the most severe consequences in the UK. By early 2021, the macroeconomic situation in the country was characterized by a simple dynamic: economic demand rebounded at a faster pace than supply, leading to shortages, bottlenecks, and inflation. The findings of this research carry significant value for the UK government and businesses, empowering them to adapt and innovate based on forecasts to navigate the challenges posed by Brexit and COVID-19. By doing so, they can promote long-term economic growth and effectively address the disruptions caused by these interrelated issues.

Find out how the UK economy is performing compared to its EU counterpart. From COVID-19 to Brexit, discover the main reasons why the UK is lagging behind.

Across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union, gross domestic products (GDP) decreased in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, by 2021, growth rates were positive in all four areas again. The United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union all experiencing slow economic growth in 2023 amid high inflation, with Germany even seeing an economic recession. GDP and its components GDP refers to the total market value of all goods and services that are produced within a country per year. It is composed of government spending, consumption, business investments and net exports. It is an important indicator to measure the economic strength of a country. Economists rely on a variety of factors when predicting the future performance of the GDP. Inflation rate is one of the economic indicators providing insight into the future behavior of households, which make up a significant proportion of GDP. Projections are based on the past performance of such information. Future considerations Some factors can be more easily predicted than others. For example, projections of the annual inflation rate of the United States are easy to come by. However, the intensity and impact of something like Brexit is difficult to predict. Moreover, the occurrence and impact of events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine is difficult to foresee. Hence, actual GDP growth may be higher or lower than the original estimates.

This statistic shows the general confidence towards the United Kingdom (UK) government's ability to obtain a good deal for the economy when negotiating Brexit, by age group. From the respondents aged 18 to 24 and **+, ** percent and ** percent respectively were not confident at all that the government could deliver.

In 2024, agriculture contributed around 0.56 percent to the United Kingdom’s GDP, 16.74 percent came from the manufacturing industry, and 72.79 percent from the services sector. The UK is not a farmer’s marketThe vast majority of the UK’s GDP is generated by the services sector, and tourism in particular keeps the economy going. In 2017, almost 214 billion British Pounds were contributed to the GDP through travel and tourism – about 277 billion U.S. dollars – and the forecasts see an upwards trend. For comparison, only an estimated 10.3 billion GBP were generated by the agriculture sector in the same year. But is it a tourist’s destination still? Though forecasts are not in yet, it is unclear whether travel and tourism can keep the UK’s economy afloat in the future, especially after Brexit and all its consequences. Higher travel costs, having to wait for visas, and overall more complicated travel arrangements are just some of the concerns tourists have when considering vacationing in the UK after Brexit. Consequences of the referendum are already observable in the domestic travel industry: In 2017, about 37 percent of British travelers said Brexit caused them to cut their holidays short by a few days, and about 14 percent said they did not leave the UK for their holidays because of it.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United Kingdom was worth 3643.83 billion US dollars in 2024, according to official data from the World Bank. The GDP value of the United Kingdom represents 3.43 percent of the world economy. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United Kingdom GDP - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

The economy of the United Kingdom reported zero growth in July 2025, after growing by 0.4 percent in June 2025. As of the most recent month, the UK economy is around 4.8 percent larger than it was in February 2020, just before the start of COVID-19 lockdowns. After a record 19.6 percent decline in GDP in April 2020, the UK economy quickly returned to growth in the following months, and grew through most of 2021. Cost of living crisis lingers into 2025 As of December 2024, just over half of people in the UK reported that their cost of living was higher than it was in the previous month. Although this is a decline from the peak of the crisis in 2022 when over 90 percent of people reported a higher cost of living, households are evidently still under severe pressure. While wage growth has outpaced inflation since July 2023, overall consumer prices were 20 percent higher in late 2024 than they were in late 2021. For food and energy, which lower income households spend more on, late 2024 prices were almost 30 percent higher when compared with late 2021. According to recent estimates, living standards, as measured by changes in disposable income fell by 2.1 percent in 2022/23, but did start to grow again in 2023/24. Late 2023 recession followed by growth in 2024 In December 2023, the UK economy was approximately the same size as it was a year earlier, and struggled to achieve modest growth throughout that year. Going into 2023, a surge in energy costs, as well as high interest rates, created an unfavorable environment for UK consumers and businesses. The inflationary pressures that drove these problems did start to subside, however, with inflation falling to 3.9 percent in November 2023, down from a peak of 11.1 percent in October 2022. Although relatively strong economic growth occurred in the first half of 2024, with GDP growing by 0.7 percent, and 0.4 percent in the first two quarters of the year, zero growth was reported in the third quarter of the year. Long-term issues, such as low business investment, weak productivity growth, and regional inequality, will likely continue to hamper the economy going forward.

Migration to and from the UK after Brexit was a thirty-nine months project (Jan 2021 – March 2024) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) through their Governance After Brexit Scheme [‘Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit’ (MIGZEN), Grant Number: ES/V004530/1] and led by researchers at the University of Birmingham (Lead Research Organisation) and Lancaster University. Brexit brought public and political attention to longstanding concerns within migration and citizenship scholarship, throwing questions of citizenship, migration and belonging into sharp relief; it also affected people's sense of belonging, mobility and settlement plans, as Britons in the EU and EU citizens and non-EU Third Country Nationals (TCN) in the UK found the status and the terms of their residence challenged, their claims to belonging, and access to rights questioned, their settlement plans in jeopardy.

With the end of the Brexit transition period came significant changes in the composition of migration flows to and from the UK, which were further compounded by the geopolitical effects and implications of the tense relationship between China and Hong Kong, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A collaborative, mixed-method research project involving academics, policy makers, civil society and migrant-led organisations, the project therefore explored the long-term impacts of Brexit and Britain’s shifting position on the world stage on migration to and from the UK, and on migrants’ experiences of these. Through this research, we sought to inform migration policy and debate by providing evidence of the everyday challenges brought by Brexit on individuals and their families living within and across the UK borders.

The project consisted of three phases as follows: - Phase 1: Survey (‘Migration and Citizenship after Brexit’): conducted in the UK and the EU between 13 December 2021 and 16 January 2022. - Phase 2: People’s Panel: conducted in the UK and the EU between May and December 2022. - Phase 3: Interviews with repatriating British citizens: conducted in the UK between May and September 2022; Interviews with Ukrainians, family and highly skilled migrants in the UK: conducted in the UK between September 2022 and February 2023; and Interviews with British emigrants: conducted in the UK between April and August 2023.

The Brexit negotiations have brought public and political attention to longstanding concerns within migration and citizenship scholarship, throwing questions of citizenship, migration and belonging into sharp relief. It is also clear that Brexit has affected people's sense of belonging, mobility and settlement plans. In the wake of Brexit, Britons in the EU and EU citizens and non-EU Third Country Nationals (TCN) in the UK are finding the status and the terms of their residence challenged, their claims to belonging, and access to rights questioned, their settlement plans in jeopardy.

Rebordering Britain and Britons after Brexit (MIGZEN) turns its attention towards these emerging issues. Through a collaborative project involving academics, policy makers, civil society and migrant-led organisations it aims to produce new knowledge about migration between the UK and EU, and how the changing legal and political relationship between the UK and EU in consequence of Brexit shapes migration and migrant experience - including settlement, questions of identity, citizenship and belonging.

It takes a unique approach to understanding the story of migration between Britain and Europe that foregrounds both immigration and emigration from Britain, and adopts an inclusive understanding of who is a migrant to examine different forms of mobility, including third country nationals and those previously entitled to freedom of movement, namely UK nationals moving within the EU, and EU citizens moving to the UK. It offers a critical analysis of the relationship between migration and migration governance in the UK that situates it in the context of the current geopolitical repositioning of the country. By foregrounding the nexus between migration and citizenship, MIGZEN offers in-depth insights into the changing relationship between the UK and European Union through a focus on migration and its governance.

The project develops an ambitious and innovative programme of work on the impact of Brexit on migration to and from the United Kingdom at a range of scales: (a) policies and legal structures; (b) flows and routes; (c) migration strategies and settlement experiences where it addresses the following research questions:

• How, and in what ways, have volume, geography and direction of migration flows between the UK and EU changed since the Brexit Referendum? And how does this relate to global migrations to and from the UK?
• In what ways do settled populations - UK nationals resident in EU member states before Brexit and EU citizens living in the UK - assess their mobile and residential futures in light of their changing legal status, personal circumstances, political and economic crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic?
• How do transformations to migration governance regimes intervene in (a) decisions to migrate and repatriate (b) subsequent experiences of settlement for those newly migrating between to the UK and from the UK to the EU following Brexit?

Through an extensive and ambitious dissemination and impact plan, the project will contribute to academic, policy, and public debates on the past, present, and future lived experiences of Brexit and migration to and from the UK. Our research offers a unique longitudinal vantage point from which to examine the dilemmas and challenges British emigrants, EU and non-EU immigrants are facing as a result of Brexit, as well as to cast light on how they are coping, adapting and responding to the additional challenges brought by COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

The main aim of this work is to develop a set of high level macro economic scenarios for the medium-term (to the end of 2022) and for the long-term (to 2030) in order to inform the development of recovery strategies in London, reflecting unprecedented uncertainty on the economic outlook. The primary scenario dimensions include Effectiveness/nature of public health response and Effectiveness/impact of economic support measures. Other scenario dimensions include: Brexit and migration; International economic context; Technology and innovation; Financial climate; Political economy; Economic Geography and GHG emissions. This is an agile project - GLA Economics will continue to track actual data in order to review the assessment of the likelihood of alternative scenario outcomes. Successive updates will be released when they become available for the benefit of external stakeholders in tackling the COVID-19 crisis.

1. The UK’s decision to leave the EU has far-reaching implications for agriculture and fisheries. To ensure the future sustainability of UK agricultural and fisheries systems, we argue that it is essential to grasp the opportunity that Brexit is providing to develop integrated policies that improve the management and protection of the natural environments, upon which these industries rely. 2. This article advances a stakeholder informed vision of the future design of UK agriculture and fisheries policies. We assess how currently emerging UK policy will need to be adapted in order to implement this vision. Our starting point is that Brexit provides the opportunity to redesign current unsustainable practices and can in principle deliver a sustainable future for agriculture and fisheries. 3. Underpinning policies with an ecosystem approach, with explicit inclusion of public goods provision, and social welfare equity were found to be central to the success of this endeavour. Recognition of the needs of, and innovative practices in, the devolved UK nations is also required as the new policy and regulatory landscape is established. 4. Achieving our proposed vision will necessitate drawing on best practice and creating more coherent and integrated food, environment and rural and coastal economy policies. Sustainable prosperity should and can form the core of future post-Brexit environmental policy thinking and our findings demonstrate the “bottom-up” and co-production approaches that will be key to the development of more environmentally sustainable agricultural and fisheries policies.

This study will analyse the potential economic impact of a lack of the Trade Continuity Agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom when the United Kingdom would no longer be a legal party to Canada-EU treaties, including CETA as of January 1, 2021. In the absence of a transitional agreement or a trade agreement between Canada and the United Kingdom, bilateral trade between the two countries would be governed by WTO rules alone, and the goods trade between Canada and the United Kingdom would be subject to WTO most-favoured nation (MFN) duties. Neither Canada nor the United Kingdom would continue to benefit from the preferential market access currently provided for under CETA. In May 2020, the United Kingdom announced the applied MFN tariff schedule referred to as the UK Global Tariff (UKGT), which would take effect after the post-Brexit transition period. The United Kingdom’s bound tariff rates—the highest tariffs that the United Kingdom could apply—have not yet been certified at the WTO. The proposed bound tariffs are almost identical to the EU’s Common External Tariffs (CET). The analysis that follows explores the economic implications of the two scenarios where Canada-U.K. trade reverts to MFN conditions: the U.K. applied tariffs (UKGT) and the U.K. bound tariffs (EU CET). The benefits from increased certainty for the services sectors under CETA would also be removed.

This dataset comes from the Living Brexit in Rural Britain project, funded by the Leverhulme trust and conducted from 2023 to 2025 collaboratively by the Universities of Sheffield, Aberystwyth, and Glasgow. This research tries to understand how Brexit continues to shape rural Britain, exploring the intersection of Brexit politics with broader social, economic, and demographic shifts.

This project examined Brexit as an ongoing, multi-layered process, existing alongside other contemporary challenges and trends such as the COVID-19 pandemic, cost-of-living crisis, changing migration trends, and global geopolitical shifts. Research was conducted in three anonymised rural market towns across England (Bonnington), Scotland (Glenforge), and Wales (Bryngwyn), selected to reflect regional diversity and varying Brexit referendum voting patterns.

Data collection involved a variety of qualitative methods, including 40 one-to-one interviews with rural policy actors, such as local politicians, agricultural sector representatives, business leaders, religious leaders, and community figures, and 15 focus groups with 58 residents in total. These residents were diverse in terms of age (mid 20s to mid 70s), length of residency, migration backgrounds, and national origins, from lifelong residents to recent international migrants. Additionally, biographical timelines of resident's personal histories were created during focus groups. Observational data were also collected through participant-observation conducted by research associates.

Research found marked participant discussions surrounding rural economic and labour market changes, shifting migration patterns post-Brexit, community cohesion and division, rural depopulation, and the relationship between local and national identities. Project findings highlighted the pronounced impact of Brexit on rural economic sectors reliant on international labour, such as agriculture, hospitality, and social care. Participants noted significant demographic changes, including declining EU migration, increasing global migration, and aging, declining rural populations. Brexit's polarising legacy emerged as a continued source of community tension, particularly pronounced in the English case study town, although mitigated by a strong sense of rural community interdependence and cohesion.Rural areas are experiencing dramatic social and economic change. For example, they have become significant sites of international labour migration and, increasingly, asylum seeker and refugee settlement leading to more ethnically diverse rural populations. Our project aims to develop understandings of how Brexit politics and policies interact with wider social, economic and demographic rural changes and affect everyday social life.

While there were variations in how rural regions voted in the 2016 Brexit Referendum, there was nevertheless a higher Leave vote in rural areas compared to the national average. This suggests a relationship between rural areas and Brexit agendas as well as highlighting why it is important to understand rural contexts and the social and economic changes being experienced within them.

It is nine years since the referendum and four years since the UK left the EU and our project examines what Brexit means for rural areas now and for the way in which rural populations think about the future of their rural localities. Putting the countryside at the centre of analysis the project pays attention to the social consequences of Brexit for different rural communities. It looks at the increasingly shared urban-rural experience of international migration and asks if it makes sense to 'ruralise' what have been more urban-associated ideas such as social cohesion and social inclusion.

Situating itself in community life in small rural towns in England, Wales, and Scotland this project offers a nationally sensitive, place-based investigation of changing rural social relations and the ways in which rural localities are being reshaped after Brexit.

In December 24, 2020, the European Union and the United Kingdom signed the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) after years of negotiations following the Brexit decision of June 2016. According to the winter economic forecast published by the European Commission, the impact of the trade agreement on the United Kingdom's gross domestic output (GDP) is predicted to lead to a loss of about **** percent by the end of 2022. This was lower than the previous forecast, which was based on a no-deal scenario trading under WTO terms. The impact of the trade agreement on the EU's GDP is forecast to be significantly lower at about *** percent.

UK Capital Market size was valued at USD XX Billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD XX Billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of XX % from 2026 to 2032.

The UK capital market is driven by a strong financial infrastructure, regulatory stability, and London’s status as a global financial hub. Growing foreign investments, fintech innovations, and sustainable finance initiatives further boost market activity.

Rising demand for IPOs, green bonds, and private equity funding fuels capital flow. Post-Brexit policies, government incentives, and a resilient economy attract both domestic and international investors.

These workbooks contain the supporting data that sits behind GLA Economics Current Issues Notes 58 and 59. The Government recently set out plans for a ‘skills-based’ immigration system post-Brexit. To inform debate, GLA Economics has produced two Current Issues Notes aimed at understanding which areas of London’s labour market are likely to be most affected by the proposals. Current Issues Note 58: Which occupations may be most affected by the new £30,000 minimum salary and RQF3+ skills threshold proposals? Who works in these roles? How does the list of affected occupations change as the salary threshold is reduced towards £21,000? Current Issues Note 59: In which occupations is the greatest disruption most likely from the proposed £30,000 minimum salary and RQF3+ skills threshold proposals? Notes:

Our data takes the form of in-depth interview transcripts discussing the relationship between local independent businesses and Cambridge as a place. The first round of data collection took place in 2017 to discover, explore and evaluate the relationship between small and medium-sized businesses and community development within Cambridge. At the time of rapid change and a turbulent economic environment it was important to understand how local independent businesses interact with, and rely on, the locale and community in which they are based.

Leading on from the first phase, this project and a second round of data collection was employed to return to Cambridge in 2022 to further investigate how the implementation of Brexit and the arrival of the pandemic has impacted upon local independent businesses and the original issues uncovered. The aim is to drive debate and discussion towards a more diverse local business environment. This is of key significance given micro, small, and medium sized firms (SMEs) are most at risk of failure post-pandemic and in the escalating energy crisis. Such SMEs are not just important local employers but are also the main way to increase regional resilience and make Cambridge feel like a ‘home town’ with distinctive independent retailers as opposed to how the New Economics Foundation refers to the city as a ‘clone town’ full of national chain stores and devoid of local character. Topics covered included local networking, local enterprise support, belonging, power, community development and inequality.

Our recent research found that such businesses agreed that without the University of Cambridge, its unique communication channel and supply of labour, the city would be much less successful as it finds itself today. However, many businesses also felt the increased growth has led to increased pressures within the city due to constrained land supply and a tightly-drawn green belt. This, coupled with the current cost of living crisis, has seen business costs rise excessively increasing demands on already stretched independent businesses.

A recurring theme throughout our study, therefore, was ‘them versus us’ regarding the power dynamic between local independent businesses (who form an integral part of the local economy) and the key stakeholders and policy makers within Cambridge. While some firms may find they succeed, it appears to be the smaller independent businesses who struggle the most within the city as they may not have sufficient footfall, nor the capital reserves required to loudly market themselves and/or overcome the high costs associated with being located within Cambridge. As such, many of these independent businesses felt unappreciated, overlooked, and under-supported.

Is entrepreneurship a matter of place? This was the question that my PhD research undertaken across four case studies in East Anglia, UK (Cambridge, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich, Norwich) answered, showing how, when and where everyday entrepreneurship occurs and the different mechanisms of entrepreneurial attachment to place in terms of individual entrepreneurs' temporal orientations: place as it was, place as it is, and place as it could be. It is the notion of 'evolving places' that goes hand-in-hand with the societal struggles for power and the distribution of resources and opportunities in shaping the policy need to think about maintenance of entrepreneurial attachment if we want places to be cared for by their people and to influence change, bridging the gaps between 'unequal' stakeholders. This has become increasingly pertinent within a post-Brexit, Covid-19, reduced migratory context - the emphasis is now firmly placed on local contexts and how they perform, driving the proposed PDF.

Drawing on my PhD's work and returning to one of my case studies with the PDF objectives in mind, I plan to publish about entrepreneurial (im)mobility in both prosperous and depleted places, whilst arguing towards a 'place-based' understanding of policy and more contextually relevant use of public spending. This counters mounting criticism of scholarly work paying insufficient attention to spatial and contextual factors when examining entrepreneurial phenomena (Welter et al 2019) and is particularly fitting in Covid-19 times with the pandemic unfolding unevenly across different socioeconomic groups, geographical areas and localities in the UK (Dorling 2020). Indeed, with reports in a surge of would-be homebuyers moving out of cities to smaller places as people conclude that home working is here to stay (Jones 2020), spatially discriminatory inequalities come to the forefront especially when the pandemic itself can be considered racist (Channel 4 Documentary 2020). Empirically examining evolving places for everyday entrepreneurship in this manner is crucial from a policy perspective to mitigate the uneven spatial impact of the crisis on the economy and create (or sustain) local jobs. Given that the UK is already one of the most inter-regionally unequal countries in the developed world (McCann 2020) and the 'levelling-up' mantra is now even harder to achieve due to Covid-19 (Brown and Cowling 2021), there is increased need for targeted, contextualised regional policy (less spatially blind) to alleviate the territorial dimensions of inequality and social exclusion and overcome the pandemic's scarring socioeconomic effects.

Complementing the academic impact of publishing, presenting and disseminating the above research with non-academic audiences is a key feature of the PDF. High impact value initiatives such as a stakeholder workshop generating debate about the spatial dimension of social exclusion, patterns of spatial segregation, and how urban disadvantage can impact localised (self)employability extends the reach of the proposed body of work, ensuring an accessible way for important local stakeholder groups to connect anew and benefit from the PDF's impact as the starting point for a wider, less power-driven, conversation. Redressing the, now increasingly severe, spatially expressed inequalities heeds recommendations to map social exclusion at a lower level to tailor the need for political counter action (Talbot et al 2015). Invited stakeholders will include business associations, tourism boards, chambers of commerce, HAs, guilds, business forums, business support organisations, Cambridge [University] Hub and local councils amongst others. In doing so, this can turn potentially negative personal relationships with place into a positive; countering the frequently made claim 'there's nothing here for us' instead giving hope through bridging societal struggles for power and embracing the positive available aspects of 'evolving places'.

This project conducted a cross-sectional survey of attitudes regarding the EU Referendum, the campaigns and political participation. Data were collected before the EU Referendum (March 2016), and after the referendum (June 2016). Sample sizes are as follows: March 2016 (5,120) and June 2016 (5,101).

This proposal is for a National Research Centre (WISERD/Civil Society) to undertake a five year programme of policy relevant research addressing Civil Society in Wales. Established in 2008, WISERD provides an 'All-Wales' focus for research and has had a major impact on the quantity and quality of social science research undertaken in Wales. As part of WISERD, WISERD/Civil Society will enable this work to be deepened and sustained through a focused research programme that further develops our research expertise, intensifies our policy impact and knowledge exchange work and strengthens our research capacity and career development activities. WISERD/Civil Society will therefore aim to develop key aspects of the multidisciplinary research initiated during the first phase of WISERD's work to produce new empirical evidence to inform our understanding of the changing nature of civil society in the context of devolved government and processes of profound social and economic change. There are many disagreements over what civil society is and how it may be changing. We do know that over the last forty years there have been unprecedented changes in the spheres of economy and industry, politics and governance, social relations and individual life courses. How individuals in local contexts are affected by and respond to dramatic institutional changes is not well understood. An important gap in our knowledge is in describing and explaining the impact of social change on local forms of civil society and civil society organisations and what this means for social cohesion and well-being. In addition how different forms of civil society are developing in the context of multi-level and devolved government is not well understood. Because of its size and devolved government, Wales offers a unique context for studying these issues. Viewing Wales as a 'laboratory for social science' the proposed centre will build on existing networks of researchers who have a wide range of expertise and skills. Large survey data sets will be exploited and analysed and new data collected on civil society in Wales, the UK and Europe. Inter-disciplinarity and multi-method approaches applied to longitudinal and comparative data will be a key feature and strength of the WISERD/Civil Society research programme. Our research will be underpinned by three principles: (i) to maximise research impact, (ii) to become a centre of excellence for comparative, longitudinal, and relational research methods and (iii) to contribute to the growth of research capacity in Wales. We will also extend our research out from Wales to undertake comparative studies at different regional, national and international levels. In this way WISERD will make substantive and novel contributions to the advancement of social theory applied to researching contemporary civil society and to methodological approaches to describing and explaining patterns of civic participation in the context of devolution and multi-level governance. Substantive research will be applied to real and timely research problems conducted under four inter-related themes: (1) Locality, Community and Civil Society, (2) Individuals, Institutions and Governance, (3)Economic Austerity, Social Enterprise and Inequality, (4) Generation, Life Course and Social Participation. Our aim will be to produce a wide range of outputs accessible to a variety of different audiences, including: academic papers; books; working papers; seminars; web based material; video and e-learning materials; as well as disseminating our work through a diversity of activities. Public awareness will be raised through events; activities; and exhibitions, designed to foster interest and encourage discussion and debate. WISERD/Civil Society will have a strong management structure, substantial institutional support, and close links with relevant organisations, and will provide substantive career development for new and early-career researchers and PhD students.

Corporate travel is closely tied to fluctuations in business confidence. Economic uncertainty, Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the industry to a halt in March 2020, significantly dented revenue for agencies at the beginning of the previous five-year period in 2020-21. The industry is still adapting to the new working trends and spending strategies of corporate companies post-pandemic in 2025-26. Demand for travel services has also faced recent hurdles of high prices for flights and hotels due to steep inflation and companies’ efforts to curb their carbon emissions. Video calls are now a cemented alternative to domestic and international business travel that saves time and money for companies. Demand from the industry's largest downstream market, the banking, financial services and insurance industries, has dropped due to the relocation of many companies out of the UK to avoid the loss of passporting rights, which they lost back in 2021. Loss of major financial clients has left a lingering impression on demand for corporate travel agents. Although industry revenue is expected to grow by 7.7% in 2025-26 as businesses increase their levels of travel, revenue is anticipated to soar at a compound annual rate of 41.8% to £4.6 billion over the five years through 2025-26 after it plummeted in 2021-22 amid lockdown restrictions. Agencies have faced unsustainably high operational expenses in recent years, driving many out of the industry and constraining profits. Over the five years through 2030-31, revenue is expected to rise at a compound annual rate of 5.1% to reach £5.9 billion, which is slightly above pre-pandemic industry revenue. The industry is significantly affected by business confidence and profit, meaning the pace at which the economy recovers following sluggish economic growth and dented business confidence will likely influence industry revenue heavily over the coming years. The growing use of virtual meetings and events and the ever-growing demand for online travel agents will slow the market's full recovery. However, progress between the UK and EU regarding ease of travel will stand to benefit the corporate travel services industry in the coming years.