British Business Bank boost to create 1,600 Scottish jobs

Susan Nightingale, director, UK network, Scotland at the British Business Bank.

Some 1,600 jobs are expected to be created on the back of financial support given to Scottish firms by the British Business Bank over the past year.

Figures released as part of the state-backed bank’s second annual impact report show that 1,500 smaller businesses north of the Border received fresh financial support in the 2024/25 financial year.

The study estimates that £800 million in additional business turnover, equivalent to a £400m boost to economic output will be generated by Scottish firms backed by the bank over the lifetime of their finance. As well as the boosts in turnover and economic output, an additional 1,600 jobs are expected to be created over time, with some 16,000 posts already supported.

Susan Nightingale, director, UK network, Scotland at the British Business Bank.

Scottish businesses represented around 6 per cent of all firms newly supported by the bank during the 12-month period under review – roughly in line with the share of the UK’s business population.

One of the key drivers is the bank’s £150m dedicated Investment Fund for Scotland, which this month announced it has delivered more than £25m to Scottish businesses since it launched 18 months ago, supporting 58 firms across the country. Alongside the investment from the bank, some £26m in private sector funding has also been committed.

Susan Nightingale, director, UK network, Scotland at the British Business Bank, said: “The British Business Bank is playing a significant role in creating an impact, driving economic growth and innovation, and contributing to the economic transformation of the UK’s nations and regions. Estimated impact figures for Scotland show that our programmes are continuing to reach a large number of businesses each year, helping them to grow, reach new markets and expand to hire new staff.

“As we continue to tackle imbalances in access to finance, particularly in terms of geographical spread and diversity among founders, we look forward to supporting even more of Scotland’s smaller businesses to thrive in the year ahead.”

The report was published as the bank gears up to deliver a “step change” in financing support to smaller businesses across the UK after its financial capacity was increased to £25.6 billion in June’s Spending Review, enabling it to increase annual investments to around £2.5bn a year and to crowd in more third-party capital.

The bank said its impact study underlined its continued commitment to Scotland and the wider nations and regions. About 84 per cent of the businesses supported by the bank in 2024/25 were based outside of London - helping to deliver a £100m-plus boost to economic output in “each and every UK nation and region”, it added.

UK-wide, in 2024/25, the bank supported a total of £6.8bn of finance for smaller businesses - £1.2bn of its own public funding, £2.6bn of lending guaranteed and an additional £3bn of private capital crowded in. This enabled the bank to support 24,000 businesses that hadn’t received bank-supported funding before, as well as 4,000 that were first funded by the bank before 2024/25.

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