According to EY’s 2022 Business Attractiveness Survey, the UK ranks No. 2 in foreign direct investment attractiveness, while Jonathan Frick, a partner at London-based consultancy Bain & Company notes that, “U.S. companies show significant confidence in the UK as a place to do business, both now and in the future.”
Despite the headwinds brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the UK has retained the confidence of the global business community because of the following factors: its long-standing respect for the rule of law, its highly-skilled workforce, and the excellence of its universities and research institutes.
In the Heritage Foundation’s 2022 Index of Economic Freedom, the UK got an overall score of 72.2 and in terms of property rights protection received a score of 96.2. The report said: “The rule of law is so well established that London has become an international hub for dispute resolution.”
While many countries face a labor shortage, exemplified by the so-called Great Resignation, the UK continues attract top talent through its top-notch research universities, as well as through inward migration.
Amanda Solloway MP, the Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, said, “The government has set out plans to make the UK the best destination in the world for researchers, making sure that it continues to attract the brightest and the best from the UK and from overseas, cementing its status as a science superpower.”
Drawing from centuries of learning, experimentation, and risk-taking, UK universities, such as Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh, have become bastions of intellectual curiosity, free inquiry, and ingenuity.
Aside from its reputation as a global financial center, London is also, according to The City of London Corporation, a “global center of academic excellence, with strong links between academic institutes and business.”
In the field of digital innovation, the corporation says London hosts more highly qualified AI experts and software developers than any other European city. With 58.5% of the workforce educated to at least degree level, it is home to one of the most skilled workforces in the world.
In a world constantly in flux, the UK leans on its deep tradition of intellectual inquiry in order to innovate. It is a country proud of its past, but it is also a country that, having faced so many upheavals in its history and prevailing over them, is confident in meeting all future challenges.
