A royal Platinum Jubilee bounce is helping drive UK business ahead, as 60 per cent of SMEs expect to see a lift in revenues this quarter.<\/p>\n
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This is in comparison to same period last year, with the four days of celebrating the Queen\u2019s 70 years on the throne helping growth this time, according to the latest quarterly Barclays SME Barometer survey.<\/p>\n
The data not only shows growth in revenues but also a rise in confidence, with SMEs looking to increase recruitment.<\/p>\n
The predicted boost in revenue is welcome news for small businesses who are facing a number of challenges including rising inflation, fuel and energy price increases and difficulty hiring staff.<\/p>\n
Who is leading the revenue surge?<\/strong><\/p>\n The survey says that driven by a surge in the hospitality and leisure industry, SMEs expect to see a 10.4 per cent rise between the months of April and June 2022, compared to the same period in 2021.<\/p>\n The hard-pressed hospitality and leisure sectors will more than treble those figures according to the survey with a predicted 34.7 per cent increase.<\/p>\n The survey also shows:<\/p>\n Despite an increasingly challenging trading environment, the generally good weather during celebrations has led to a predicted \u00a376 million boost to independent pubs, bars, and restaurants with nearly half (49 per cent) of those that opened predicting a sales rise.<\/p>\n Payments to SMEs surge<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition, payments to business via debit and credit cards is on the rise, with data from\u00a0Barclaycard Payments showing a rise of 20 per cent in value and 35 per cent in volume of payments when measured against pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n The data was collected over the same first quarter by the firm, which processes one in three debit and credit card payments in the UK.<\/p>\n Colin O\u2019Flaherty, head of SME at Barclaycard Payments, said:\u00a0\u201cAfter an exceptionally tough time for the hospitality and leisure sector, it\u2019s encouraging to see that businesses have seen revenues rise over the last few months, despite a challenging economic climate.\u201d<\/p>\n For help and advice with related matters please contact our expert team<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A royal Platinum Jubilee bounce is helping drive UK business ahead, as 60 per cent of SMEs expect to see a lift in revenues this quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20,12,13],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n