Business

Innovate UK has awarded more than £300,000 in funding to a collaboration between the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Sustainable Innovation and UK healthtech company Sanome, to accelerate the development of an AI-enabled system for the early detection of hospital-acquired infections. The 18-month SMART grant will support the co-design and roll-out of MEMORI, a Class IIb CE-certified software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) platform that analyses real-time clinical data to predict infection risk up to seven days before symptoms...

A High Court judge has ruled that thousands of people affected by a major data breach at Capita can continue with their legal action against the outsourcing group, in a decision being described as a landmark for large-scale data privacy claims in the UK. In a judgment handed down on 9 February, Master Dagnall rejected arguments from Capita’s legal team that solicitors acting for more than 8,000 claimants had abused the court process. Capita had...

The business secretary, Peter Kyle, has urged small businesses to rediscover Britain’s exporting spirit, calling on entrepreneurs to take a “leap of faith” and start selling overseas with the backing of government finance and advice. Speaking to an audience of small business owners at the UK Trade and Export Finance Forum in London last week, Kyle warned that the UK was losing momentum as an exporting nation. Official figures show that the proportion of UK...

Training workers to use artificial intelligence will be “critical” to managing disruption in the UK labour market, according to Andrew Bailey, who said there were already signs that AI was reshaping careers and hiring patterns. Speaking at a conference in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Bailey said the long-term impact of AI on employment remained “highly uncertain”, but warned that early indicators pointed to meaningful change. “In the UK, in the last three years, new online...

Ocado is preparing plans that could see up to 1,000 jobs cut as part of a renewed effort to rein in costs, following a difficult year for its automated warehouse technology business. Up to 5 per cent of the group’s global workforce could be affected, according to people familiar with the discussions, although talks remain at an early stage and no final decision has been taken. An announcement could come as soon as this month....

Royal Mail has urged small and medium-sized businesses to apply for its £1 million apprenticeship levy fund during National Apprenticeship Week (9–15 February), as it steps up efforts to help address skills shortages across the SME sector. Applications are open for the second round of the fund, which is available to businesses with up to 250 employees that sell products online. The funding can be used for any government-accredited apprenticeship, spanning areas from industry-specific roles...

Tesco is pressing ahead with a major expansion of its convenience estate after buying a number of former Amazon Fresh stores in London. Britain’s largest supermarket group plans to open more than 70 new Tesco Express outlets by March 2027, building on the 60 convenience stores it opened last year. The retailer already operates just over 2,000 convenience shops across the UK and Ireland as it seeks to capture a greater share of everyday, top-up...

The UK government must overhaul its approach to public sector procurement if it is serious about backing British innovation, according to Justin Megawarne, managing partner at Megaslice, who has accused Whitehall of hiding behind rigid frameworks and “arbitrary scoring systems”. Megawarne’s comments follow the decision to award Fujitsu a place on a government framework worth up to £984 million, despite the company’s central role in developing and supporting the Post Office Horizon IT system. The...

NatWest has agreed a £2.7 billion deal to acquire Evelyn Partners in its largest corporate takeover since the banking group was rescued by taxpayers during the financial crisis, and its most significant acquisition since returning to full private ownership. The purchase of the wealth manager from private equity firms Permira and Warburg Pincus, combined with NatWest’s existing Coutts franchise, will create the UK’s largest private banking and wealth management business. The enlarged group will oversee...

The growing use of weight-loss injections could dent demand for sausage rolls and pastries at Greggs, potentially depriving the bakery chain of some of its most lucrative customers, according to City analysts. The warning comes as Greggs continues to grapple with slower sales growth since mid-2024, a period that has prompted investor speculation over whether the UK has reached “peak Greggs”. The company has attributed its softer performance to fragile consumer confidence and last summer’s...