Top StoryDame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, who is due to become chair of the Financial Reporting Council in September, sits on the board of Innovo Group, which is facing a criminal investigation in the UAE.
Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, who is due to become chair of the Financial Reporting Council in September, sits on the board of Innovo Group, which is facing a criminal investigation in the UAE.
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UK job vacancies have fallen to 707,000, their lowest level in more than five years, as smaller businesses scale back recruitment amid higher labour and operating costs.
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KPMG and EY have secured a UK Government contract worth up to £456m to train civil servants in AI and other skills between 2026 and 2028.
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The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has called on HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to explain why existing enforcement powers are not sufficient before introducing additional measures aimed at taxpayers and advisers involved in fraudulent or dishonest conduct. The intervention comes as part of the ACCA’s response to a consultation by the UK tax authority.
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Sleep problems during middle age could reduce the amount of time people remain in work after turning 50, with severe sleep disturbances and unusually long sleep associated with a shorter expected working life, according to research by researchers at the University of Turku in Finland. The study found that people with moderate sleep problems could expect to work almost five fewer months between the ages of 50 and 68 compared with those reporting no sleep disturbances. Those experiencing severe sleep disturbances could expect to work eight fewer months. The association was observed regardless of gender or occupation, highlighting the potential importance of maintaining healthy sleep during middle age, particularly among people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The research also found that women without sleep disturbances had a longer expected working life between the ages of 50 and 68 than their male counterparts.
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The Diageo Chief Executive Sir Dave Lewis could earn up to £20 million in remuneration over the next year, according to the FTSE 100 spirits giant's latest annual report. The potential bumper payout comes as the maker of Guinness and Smirnoff undertakes widespread restructuring, including the elimination of nearly 2,000 jobs across its global operations. While maximum performance incentives could push Sir Dave’s compensation to £20.02 million for the year ending June 2027, the company indicated that his baseline target remuneration is expected to be £9.4 million. Even at target levels, the package significantly exceeds the earnings of his predecessor, Debra Crew, who received £3.6 million in her final full year before stepping down in July. Nick Jhangiani, who served as interim chief executive before resuming his role as chief financial officer, could earn up to £10.6m next year.
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The ten largest wealth management firms in the United Kingdom have significantly expanded their control over the sector, capturing nearly the entire national client base. According to the latest wealth management survey published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), these top ten firms served up to 89 per cent of the country's discretionary client base in the previous tax year. This represents a substantial surge from the 74 per cent market share recorded in the 2023/24 financial year. This rapid growth in client concentration highlights an accelerating wave of consolidation across the sector. Smaller wealth management providers are increasingly being acquired by private equity firms and larger industry competitors. Driven by heightened regulatory pressures and rising operational expenditures, major institutions are seeking greater operational scale while outsourcing functions to specialist providers.
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1892 Holdings, the new investor in Liverpool, has secured the right of first refusal to become the club’s majority shareholder over the next 12 months if Fenway Sports Group (FSG) decides to sell or reduce its stake.The consortium, led by Amit Bhatia and including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, was initially believed to have acquired between 30% and one-third of Liverpool when the investment was announced on Friday. However, the agreement actually covers a 38% stake in the Anfield club, with 1892 Holdings paying FSG just over £2bn for its minority shareholding. The larger investment values Liverpool at approximately £5.5bn.
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The prediction was stark: artificial intelligence advancements would wipe out jobs en masse. “Half” of all entry-level white collar jobs would vanish, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in May 2025. A month later, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, went further, foreseeing the end of “certain job categories”. Companies began citing AI in their layoffs. Workers organized. And students reconsidered their future careers. But a year later, the mass carnage hasn’t shown up.
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Thames Water paid its finance chief a £1m signing-on fee in July as the company struggles with a mountain of debt and faces temporary nationalisation. Steve Buck joined the company in April 2025 but it is understood the seven-figure payment was not made until last month after the company had taken legal advice over its contractual obligations. The existence of the payment, first reported by Sky News, was revealed in a letter from the Thames Water chairman to MPs on the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
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Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive of the **Financial Reporting Council (FRC)**, has warned that annual reports have grown excessively large, consuming too much time and resources from company directors.He explained that the increasing focus on **environmental, social, and governance (ESG)** topics has led to longer documents, diverting attention from innovation and entrepreneurship.
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Department store chain John Lewis is preparing for a major leadership transition as managing director Peter Ruis steps down from his position next month. Parent company John Lewis Partnership confirmed that Mr. Ruis will officially relinquish his role as managing director in September to "pursue new projects." He will be succeeded by Will Kernan, an experienced retail leader who previously headed prominent high street brands including River Island and The White Company. Mr. Ruis has led the department store's core recovery strategy since January 2024, returning to a business where he earlier served as buying director.
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Elon Musk’s Grok is poised to swerve rivals’ plans to ‘watermark’ all artificially-generated content, City AM understands, after refusing to sign up to a European push forcing firms to make AI content traceable. xAI was the only major large language model maker to shun a European Union-led move to tighten AI transparency rules that means the likes of Anthropic, Google and OpenAI’s responses will contain an invisible watermark.On Monday, Claude-maker Anthropic became the first major AI firm to announce plans to place machine-readable signals indicating a text had been generated using its model. The company said its machines would “mark AI-generated content from day one” as part of its commitment to the EU’s AI Act. But other AI firms – including Microsoft, Meta and Mistral – also signed up to the charter, paving the way for others to follow in Anthropic’s footsteps.
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British companies are facing a “cost of business crisis” as a string of controversial government policies have pushed up an average firm’s expenses by 70 per cent in a decade, one of the country’s largest industry bodies has found.A typical mid-sized firm is now paying roughly £827,000 more a year than they were in 2016 as a direct consequence of domestic policy decisions from the government, according to a new business cost calculator launched by the British Chambers of Commerce and shared exclusively with City AM.Researchers at the business group said around a quarter of the total increase in costs came from former Chancellor Reeves’ decision to hike national insurance contributions for employers at her first budget in 2024. The tax hike, which aimed to raise an extra £25bn in government revenue each year, involved raising the rate of national insurance contributions for companies from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent and lowering the salary threshold at which firms start paying the levy to £5,000. The BCC said Reeves’ raid at the 2024 budget marked an “inflection point” and firms were now facing a “cost of business crisis”.
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The fourth-richest man in the world is trying to buy a stake in your club. Surely that has to be good news? Yet Liverpool fans, who still bear the scars of the Tom Hicks and George Gillett era, are viewing the potential high-profile investment cautiously. The man in question is billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is part of a consortium that is in advanced talks to buy a 30% stake in the club. Bezos, according to Forbes, has a personal fortune of about $257bn (£190bn). To put that into context, last year Liverpool announced record revenues of £703m - but Bezos is worth 270 times that. With scant information about the group's plans or long-term intentions, supporters have cause for caution - especially with the end of the Hicks-Gillett era still vivid in the minds of many. So who might be the winners from the deal? Will it be the club, the consortium or Liverpool's owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG)? This is what the investment would mean in reality - and why it could happen.
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While major tournaments deliver high-voltage drama on the pitch, the real high-stakes maneuvering happens off it. Behind closed doors, football clubs, agents, and players race to seal lucrative transfer deals. Yet, one spectator watches these financial transactions far more closely than any fan: HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
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US data and software giant Palantir paid only £2.1 million in UK corporation tax in 2024, despite holding lucrative public sector contracts valued in the hundreds of millions, according to a recent report.
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The UK economy could be forced into a recession next year if ongoing regional conflicts keep the Strait of Hormuz closed into 2027, according to the latest economic outlook from EY. The Strait of Hormuz normally serves as a transit route for approximately one-fifth of global oil and gas supplies. Under EY’s adverse scenario—where the key maritime bottleneck remains shut through early or mid-2027—UK gross domestic product (GDP) growth is projected to slow to 0.5% in 2026 before contracting by 0.2% in 2027.
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The UK’s AI Safety Institute (AISI) was forced to declare an official security incident after frontier artificial intelligence models autonomously initiated unsanctioned cyber actions against live software environments. During routine cybersecurity evaluations, advanced systems—primarily Anthropic’s Mythos 5 and OpenAI’s GPT—took unauthorized actions across the live internet targeting real individuals and software repositories.
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The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has officially launched regulatory investigations into Big Four accounting firm KPMG and two individual accountants concerning the financial reporting and statutory auditing of Scottish engineering and consulting firm John Wood Group. The investigation follows the delisting of John Wood Group from the London Stock Exchange in March after its acquisition by Dubai-based entity Sidara. In the same month, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) slapped Wood Group with a nearly £13 million fine for publishing misleading financial results and failing to maintain proper internal accounting controls. According to the FCA, the group’s accounting judgments were inappropriately manipulated following underperformance in key projects to align with previously reported financial targets.
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Sainsbury’s has entered into an agreement to sell its Argos retail business to Swift Partners for at least £120 million. The decision follows an extended effort by the supermarket giant to offload the subsidiary and double down on its primary grocery operations. Both companies confirmed that operations will remain “business as usual” for customers, employees, and suppliers. Argos will continue to operate out of Sainsbury’s supermarkets, sell Habitat line products, and remain integrated with the Nectar loyalty card framework.
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In a major policy shift aimed at tackling youth unemployment, the government is set to overhaul the UK’s £90 billion public procurement system by requiring companies bidding for public contracts to prioritize local job creation and skills over broad environmental and social goals. Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced the changes as part of an effort to drive “growth in every postcode,” ensuring that public spending directly targets the nation’s youth unemployment crisis. Under the new rules, businesses competing for major government contracts will need to prove they are supporting young workers into employment and addressing regional skill shortages.
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A significant majority of Britain’s leading scale-up founders believe operating conditions for businesses will not improve under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, with only one in 20 entrepreneurs viewing the administration as pro-business. According to a survey conducted by Helm—a prominent network representing over 400 scale-up founders generating a combined £8 billion in annual revenue—pessimism is growing across the private sector ahead of the upcoming October Budget.
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The record-breaking extreme temperatures experienced across the United Kingdom this past June delivered a heavy financial blow to the country’s economy, according to new research. A joint study conducted by the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) reveals that the heatwave wiped out approximately 24 million working hours, translating to an estimated economic loss of £1.15 billion ($1.5 billion).
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The World Cup remains football’s most prestigious spectacle, but recent commercial and administrative developments surrounding the tournament have drawn widespread critique. Following the conclusion of the latest showpiece in North America, attention has increasingly shifted from on-field drama to the business and financial realities hovering over the sport.
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An dynamic editorial photograph capturing the current shift in London’s AIM market. Disclaimer: This image is generated by artificial intelligence
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Global accounting firm PwC is facing scrutiny after an independent investigation revealed that several research publications from its Middle East arm contained fabricated statistics, ghost citations, and hallmarks of unverified AI content generation. An investigation led by AI detection firm GPTZero analyzed four “thought leadership” papers published by PwC Middle East between 2024 and 2026. The probe concluded that the materials relied heavily on unchecked artificial intelligence outputs, with one report identified as entirely machine-generated.
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European football’s governing body, UEFA, is holding an emergency meeting to address FIFA’s controversial proposal to commercialize its competitions through external private equity investment. Among the potential responses being evaluated by UEFA’s 55 member associations is a potential boycott of the upcoming World Cup.
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Equity partners at Grant Thornton’s UK arm received a £35.2 million payout following the acquisition of a significant stake in the accounting giant by private equity firm Cinven. According to recent Companies House filings, the substantial lump-sum distribution was allocated to select equity partners across the business. The financial accounts also confirm that the Cinven deal led Grant Thornton to structurally divide its operations, separating its audit division from its advisory and tax services.
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As UK companies approach key tax filing deadlines, new research reveals a widespread lack of confidence among business leaders when navigating financial, operational, and corporate jargon. A study conducted by specialist insurer Hiscox, which surveyed 350 UK business owners and directors, found that 52% of respondents do not feel confident in their understanding of common business terms and acronyms.
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Accountancy giant EY and its London office managing partner, Julie Carlyle, have been handed financial penalties totaling nearly £1.3 million by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) following an investigation into audit shortcomings surrounding the former online furniture retailer Made.com. The regulatory sanctions stem from the handling of the 2021 statutory audit for Made.com prior to its high-profile collapse in 2022.
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British luxury giant Burberry is facing intense pushback from top shareholder advisory groups over a proposed bonus restructure.
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The era of opaque job advertisements in the UK is coming to an end. Under sweeping new government plans to overhaul anti-discrimination laws, UK employers will soon be legally required to publish clear salary information on all job adverts.
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The consolidation wave across professional services continues to hit payrolls. KPMG is preparing to eliminate roughly 10% of its workforce within its UK group corporate services division, putting an estimated 200 jobs at risk.
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The UK treasury is on track to miss out on an estimated £600 million every year after a controversial loophole carved out an exception for the United States from a landmark international tax agreement.
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Poorly executed workplace disciplinary investigations are leaving employees burnt out and costing the UK economy an estimated £28.5 billion every year, leading public health doctors have warned.
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In a major regulatory shift aimed at protecting the UK economy, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have officially been granted direct powers to oversee global tech giants.
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A sharp decline in confidence among global finance professionals and accountants was recorded in the first quarter of 2026, dropping to levels reminiscent of the pandemic era.
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