Business

The Government has unveiled new gender pay gap and menopause action plans designed to help women thrive in the workplace, as ministers seek to shift the focus from transparency to tangible change ahead of International Women’s Day 2026. From April, employers with more than 250 staff will be encouraged to publish detailed action plans outlining how they intend to reduce their gender pay gap and support employees experiencing menopause. The initiative forms part of a...

For decades, baby boomer founders have been the quiet backbone of the private economy. They built manufacturing firms, regional retailers, logistics operators, service businesses and family brands that now sit at the heart of local communities and national supply chains. Many of them started with little more than grit, long hours and a stubborn refusal to fail. Now that generation is stepping back, and the scale of what is changing is far bigger than most...

The majority of great presentations do not contain presentations about how to make beautiful pictures, but rather they contain clear, concise messages with pictures to help make the ideas simple to comprehend, good to remember, and more visually engaging. When the audience is confronted with a pile of text on a page that has a varied color scheme or a poor layout, they will not pay attention to what’s being presented. That’s when the need...

The online casino industry operates in one of the most competitive digital environments today. Rapid technological development, regulatory complexity, and increasing player expectations require operators to adopt structured, data-driven marketing strategies rather than relying on isolated promotional tactics. Sustainable growth is only possible when acquisition, retention, branding, and analytics are integrated into a unified system. Many operators achieve measurable results by cooperating with a specialized iGaming marketing agency, which understands the nuances of gambling promotion,...

A bold bet on SpaceX has paid off handsomely for RIT Capital Partners, after the value of its stake in Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite business soared past £100 million by the end of last year. The Rothschild-backed investment trust revealed that its holding in the US aerospace group had risen to £102.3 million, making it the eighth-largest position in its portfolio. Just six months earlier, the stake had been valued at £31.4 million, highlighting...

Breaking into the CBD market does not have to involve months of product development, complex compliance preparation, or large upfront manufacturing costs. For many entrepreneurs, the quickest route to market is partnering with a dependable white-label supplier who can manage formulation, testing, and production while you focus on branding and sales. The white label CBD sector has expanded rapidly across Europe, giving startups access to professional-grade products that are ready to sell under their own...

Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her Spring Statement to the House of Commons under the shadow of escalating conflict in the Middle East and mounting fears of a renewed inflation shock driven by surging energy prices. In a speech lasting just over 20 minutes, Reeves stressed the importance of “stability in an increasingly uncertain world”, pointing to falling inflation and previous interest rate cuts as evidence that the cost-of-living squeeze on households is easing. However, beyond...

Expectations of further Bank of England base rate cuts this year have been thrown into doubt after escalating conflict in the Middle East triggered sharp rises in energy prices and government bond yields, raising fears of a fresh inflationary shock. Only a week ago, markets were confident that the Bank of England would cut rates again at its March meeting, with traders pricing in an 86 per cent probability of a 0.25 percentage point reduction....

The UK’s competition watchdog has launched a formal investigation into three of the world’s largest hotel groups, Hilton, InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott International, over concerns they may have shared “competitively sensitive” information through a third-party data analytics platform. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it is examining whether the hotel operators exchanged commercially sensitive data using STR, a widely used industry benchmarking tool owned by CoStar Group. Together, the three hotel groups operate...

Household energy bills could climb back towards crisis-era levels if disruption to Middle Eastern gas supplies continues, after wholesale prices surged in the wake of military escalation involving Iran, Israel and the United States. Analysts warned that annual bills could rise to around £2,500 if global gas markets face prolonged instability, undoing recent relief for consumers and reviving memories of the energy shock that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Britain’s benchmark wholesale gas price, NBP,...