Founders Say Burnham’s New Government Must Seize the Growth Opportunity | Founders Pulse

Our latest Founders Pulse finds a clear opportunity for the new Government: founders are open to its growth agenda, but want the capital, clarity and delivery to make it work.

The new UK Government has put economic growth at the heart of its agenda. As Parliament returns from recess, Prime Minister Andy Burnham is promising a more devolved, investment-led approach: backing local industrial strategies, building a more pro-business and innovation-led economy, and creating the conditions for UK startups and scaleups to stay and grow here.

That ambition aligns closely with what founders want — the opportunity now is to turn it into a growth plan businesses can understand, invest behind and build around.

So, what do founders want to see next?

In our latest Founders Pulse, we heard from ~200 leading UK tech founders, spanning early-stage businesses through to Series C+ growth companies, including unicorn founders.

The overall message is constructive: founders want the Government to turn its growth ambitions into action — with clearer priorities, more capital behind them and stronger evidence of delivery.

Founders Want Greater Clarity on the Growth Plan

One of the clearest opportunities is around the growth plan itself. Almost two-thirds of founders said they were not very or not at all confident that the Government’s economic strategy would prioritise scale-ups and high-growth businesses. A similar proportion said they did not clearly understand its priorities for business and the economy.

But founders have not rejected the Government’s broader direction. When presented with four priorities — boosting investment, unlocking innovation, getting Britain working and empowering places — a majority said pursuing them together would give them confidence that Government had a good plan for economic growth.

The message is less change direction and more: make the direction clearer, join the pieces together and show how they will be delivered.

Capital and Investment Come First

When founders were asked what Government should prioritise for scale-ups and high-growth businesses, access to capital and investment came out on top, with business taxation and R&D support close behind.

The same theme emerged when founders looked at the wider economy: boosting British investment — public, private and international — was the leading priority for UK growth, followed by helping people turn innovation into successful businesses.

There are differences by stage. Early-stage founders place greater emphasis on funding and R&D support, while later-stage founders increasingly focus on taxation, regulation and the practical challenges of scaling.

Together, the findings point to a straightforward ask: get more capital flowing into ambitious businesses and make the UK an easier place to invest, innovate and scale.

Founders Want Delivery, Not Just Ambition

The biggest barrier founders identified to UK economic growth was short-termism in policy and investment, cited by more than seven in ten respondents. Bureaucracy and regulation were another major concern.

That helps explain what founders want from the new Government now. When asked what would increase their confidence in its ability to deliver, clear funding behind its priorities emerged as the leading answer, alongside practical action on regulation, scale-up support and tracking progress.

One founder called simply for:

“Genuine engagement with business.”

Another put it more directly:

“Reduce taxes, cut red tape, make it simpler to hire and let go of staff. Give people an incentive to start a company and invest.”

For growth-stage founders in particular, there is a strong call for policy that recognises the specific challenges of companies trying to move from promising UK start-up to global category leader.

Keeping Founders Building in the UK

The stakes are clear. Six in ten founders said they have seriously considered relocating out of the UK for business reasons in the last 12 months, with the figure even higher among Growth/Late Stage founders. Importantly, that headline number has remained broadly consistent across successive Founders Pulse surveys.

There are some signs of improving sentiment: founders are slightly less pessimistic about the economic outlook than they were earlier in 2025.

That is the opportunity for the Burnham Government. Founders are not asking for an entirely different economic mission. They are asking for capital, clarity and delivery: a long-term plan they can understand, investment they can access and an operating environment that makes Britain the obvious place to build the next generation of global technology companies.

Read the full Founders Pulse results here.

If you haven’t already, join Founders Pulse and be part of the conversation. The more founders who contribute, the stronger the founder voice in Government will be.

_{Photo Copyright: Crown copyright. Licensed under the Open Government Licence. Credit: Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing St}