The Productivity Engine

There are fundamental challenges holding back a generation, limiting our economic potential and impacting our living standards. The housing shortage, exacerbated by restrictive planning and underinvestment, is delaying young adults' independence and sapping disposable income. The rise of hybrid work post-COVID is impacting office use and local businesses. Soaring housing costs are pushing workers further from jobs, lengthening commutes and lowering productivity.

The UK is also failing to fully commercialise its world-class scientific research. Funding gaps, talent shortages, and insufficient government support are hindering the growth of innovative SMEs, particularly outside the Golden Triangle. The economic and social costs of not nurturing homegrown breakthroughs in AI, life sciences, and sustainability are immense.

At the same time, the UK must juggle rising energy demands from booming knowledge industries with urgent decarbonisation goals, necessitating a revamp of aging power infrastructure.

To better understand the complex web of factors influencing productivity, we have developed a framework to interrogate the four key types of space that can help lift the UK’s productivity: Housing, Cities, Innovation, and Power & Infrastructure.

These first order effects, primary drivers of productivity, are often overlooked or underappreciated in the national discourse. There are 'second-order effects' too, the myriad of factors that interact with and influence these primary drivers of productivity.