28/11/2025
Autumn Budget: What small business owners need to know
At a glance:
There are long-term cost pressures for SMEs including higher minimum wage, and a cap on NI-free pension salary sacrifice contributions.
Investment and growth levers exist, but details are thin: EMI, VCT, and listing reliefs are referenced to aid scaling, but no new CGT or major relief updates are confirmed yet.
Plan for rising costs, reassess exit strategies, and stay alert to changes while acting now rather than waiting for future budgets.
This Budget arrived under unusual circumstances. The Office for Budget Responsibility accidentally released its report two hours early, creating confusion before the Chancellor even stood up. Outside Westminster, around 10,000 farmers were protesting, highlighting deeper economic discontent across multiple sectors.
Against this backdrop, the government leaned heavily on the language of growth, promising support for scale-ups, startups, and innovative businesses entering new markets.
Read more: https://www.sleightwm.co.uk/article/detail/sjpp/autumn-budget-what-small-business-owners-need-to-know
The levels and bases of taxation and reliefs from taxation can change at any time. Tax relief is dependent on individual circumstances.
We work in conjunction with an extensive network of external growth advisers and SME specialists, such as Elephants Child, who have been carefully selected by St. James's Place. The services provided by these specialists are separate and distinct to the services carried out by St. James's Place and include advice on how to grow your business and prepare your business for sale and exit.
Where the opinions of third parties are offered, these may not necessarily reflect those of St. James's Place.
