With one week to go, the election remains too close to call. With that, on November 5, the USA will vote and if Trump wins, there will be implications for the UK. Foreign policy is the one area where Trump has internationalists concerned, equally his primary gripe is that NATO members should be paying their way, and the USA is footing the bill for defense in Europe unnecessarily.
The quarterly funding data from Pitchbook has now been released, and for people in the IT community, it makes grim reading. The deal count in Q3 is down 43% compared to Q2 and deal values have shrunk by an even greater amount. Whilst the VC/PE backed start up community is a small fragment of the UK labour market, funding data is indicative of the wider prevailing economic trends.
The return of working from the office, is manifesting, especially in the larger companies, with a combination of carrot and stick now in effect. Refusniks who are successfully negotiating to retain their remote privileges are being told that only people based on site are likely to get bonuses and promotions, whilst others are starting to be counted in and out and disciplined if they are found to be working remotely too often.
The countdown to the October 30 budget starts now. 3 months into power, and the priorities of this Government are becoming clear. The question is how to pay for these policies the Government want to implement. For context, the inflation busting public sector pay rises have already added 10BN to the budget, and there are likely to be more to follow. Without productivity linked reform, the danger is that this just results in inflationary pressure, at a time when the Government would be wanting interest rates to fall.
Historically, IT has been the disruptor. From Retail to Transportation, the integration of technology has meant that monopolistic incumbents have lost market share to new upstarts, who have carved out their own share of the market. As an example, imagine that 20 years ago, Black Cab drivers could expect to earn £100,000+ per annum. With Uber, the profession has been permanently changed.
