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The UK’s Industrial Strategy: The role of business in delivery

 

“The Industrial Strategy provides vital long-term direction for businesses. Delivery is now the priority."

Chris Sood-Nicholl
Managing Director of Regional Development, Sustainability & Client Advisory
Published on: 13 August 2025
3 min read

Launched in June 2025, Invest 2035 – the UK Government’s new Industrial Strategy – is a bold, long-term plan to drive productivity, accelerate innovation and ensure regional economic resilience across the country.

At its core, the Industrial Strategy provides a clear roadmap for UK businesses and investors, identifying the sectors, technologies, and regions the government is committed to supporting through capital investment and coordinated policy action.

The Industrial Strategy at a glance

Designed to boost growth, the strategy sets out a plan for the UK to tackle long-standing economic challenges, namely:

  • National productivity shortfalls
  • Regional economic disparities
  • The UK’s international competitiveness

The strategy also aims to unlock growth through eight high-potential sectors, known as the ‘IS-8’:

  • Advanced Manufacturing
  • Defence
  • Life Sciences
  • Clean Energy
  • Creative Industries
  • Business & Professional Services
  • Digital & Technology
  • Financial Services

These sectors are expected to deliver the most significant economic impact and position the UK as a global leader in innovation and industry over the next 10 years and beyond. To support them, the government has produced a detailed list of interventions with the objective of enhancing access to talent and skills, promoting international trade and co-operation, strengthening economic security, expanding access to finance and harnessing the potential of both public and private data.

Complementing the Industrial Strategy is the 10-year Infrastructure Strategy, which aims to boost investment in housing, energy and transport – essential enablers of economic growth. Taken together, the two strategies offer businesses a more predictable policy environment and clearer long-term planning horizons.

 

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Why it matters to business

The Industrial Strategy is not just a policy document – it’s a call to action for UK businesses to engage in shaping the future economy.

For business leaders, it offers:

  • Certainty and strategic direction on government priorities
  • Targeted sector insight that identifies areas for innovation and growth
  • Opportunities to collaborate in major regional infrastructure and development projects via the Infrastructure Strategy. 

In short, it’s a powerful tool for businesses to plan, grow and lead in a more resilient and innovation-driven UK economy. From regional innovation hubs to AI investment, engaging with it now will help firms benefit from, and shape, the next decade of national economic development.

Bridging industry and strategy: the Industrial Strategy Roadshow

Turning the strategy into action though will require meaningful dialogue between government and management teams. That’s why we’re proud to be partnering with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in delivering the UK’s only Industrial Strategy Roadshow. The year-long programme of events – touching all corners of the UK – is designed to help the government work more closely with businesses to the benefit of every sector, nation and region, and to bring regional voices and experts into the national conversation. 

This nationwide initiative aims to engage businesses directly, providing detailed insights into the strategy and highlighting practical opportunities for businesses to align with and benefit from Invest 2035. Crucially, the events will bring together policymakers and industry leaders, creating opportunities for businesses to inform ongoing policy development and implementation.

Public-private partnerships

Public-private partnerships have the potential to unlock investment in the foundations for a more prosperous society. This is particularly true within the social housing sector where we’ve also partnered with the National Wealth Fund, along with other funding partners, as part of a £1.5 billion social housing retrofit guarantee to accelerate improvements to affordable homes across the UK. 

Improvements include low carbon heating and insulation to create warmer homes, lower bills and improved health, work and home life for social housing residents. We intend to support more projects like this in the future, bringing together public and private sector support to develop critical infrastructure.

Having launched in Birmingham this summer, the roadshow will also visit The Humber, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Northern Ireland and more. 

A key theme expected to run through the roadshow is the power of public-private partnerships. Encouragingly, we are already seeing successful public-private models that are helping to crowd additional private capital into the UK. The National Wealth Fund (NWF), for example, is supporting UK grid upgrades – such as the groundbreaking £1.35 billion commitment with ScottishPower, which Lloyds and other lenders are supporting, to boost grid capacity and support future clean energy projects.  

Alongside investment, we also expect skills to be central to the debate. Tech skills, for example, are recognised by the government as foundational to the delivery of the Industrial Strategy – particularly the role of AI in boosting productivity.

Positively, the Lloyds Bank Business Barometer, which measures the confidence levels of UK businesses, recently found that more than half (56%) plan to make new investments in AI over the next year, with a quarter (25%) of non-adopters planning to use AI for the first time.  

Backing British business

We see the Industrial Strategy as an opportunity to further the support we're providing to organisations of all sizes, helping them to achieve their growth goals through targetedinvestment and focus on skills of the future. We are proud to have a banking relationship with over 70% of universities in the UK and are the main transaction banking partner to over 30% of larger universities.

In 2024 we launched our report, co-authored with PwCUK, titled Drivers of Growth: Universities' Enhanced Civic Role at the Heart of National Prosperity. Our report highlights the need to focus on five key themes: Purpose, Collaboration, System Navigation, Capability and Culture, and Understanding Value. While many institutions are already rising to this challenge, the real opportunity lies in scaling these efforts across all universities; there 's no time like the present, under the Industrial Strategy, to capitalise on this opportunity.

A roadmap for the future 

The Industrial Strategy Roadshow launch in Birmingham set the tone for what promises to be a transformative national conversation. Having spoken alongside West Midlands Metro Mayor Richard Parker, I’m enthused by the path ahead – not least due to the optimism displayed by the businesses present. Taking the West Midlands as an example, there is an opportunity to create 100,000 new jobs and generate a timely £6.5 billion boost to the economy as the combined authority aligns its own 10-year plan to the Industrial Strategy. It’s a powerful reminder of what targeted investment and meaningful devolution can deliver over time.  

If we are able to deliver this kind of success across the nation, it will go a long way to realising the ambitions of the Industrial Strategy – stimulating the transformational growth that will power a more prosperous Britain for generations to come. 

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Chris Sood-Nicholls
About the author Chris Sood-Nicholls

Managing Director of Regional Development, Sustainability & Client Advisory

Chris Sood-Nicholls brings over 20 years of experience in banking and financial services, having held senior client-facing roles across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. His expertise spans corporate finance and commercial banking, with a strong track record in sectors including Aerospace, Defence, Transport, Leisure, and Business & Professional Services. 

Chris currently serves in Lloyds Bank’s Sustainable Finance team, where he leads the Commercial Bank’s Regional Development programme. This initiative focuses on place-based, socially impactful investment - supporting the regeneration of underserved areas while delivering positive social, environmental and commercial returns.

An Oxford University graduate with a Master of Arts in Japanese and Economics, Chris also holds an MBA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He holds several non-executive roles, including Directorships on the Blackpool Pride of Place Board and the West Midlands Energy Capital Board - both public-private partnerships driving regional social and environmental transformation. Chris also serves on the board of Responsible Finance, the UK’s industry body for Community Development Financial Institutions, supporting the sector’s next phase of growth.

Follow Chris on LinkedIn

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