Come autumn, British founders and venture investors all play the same game of checking news feeds, holding back anxiety and downplaying how much tax changes really matter. The suspense vanishes on 28 October when the Chancellor delivers the Autumn Budget.
Some of it’s already settled. The main rates of income tax, VAT and employee National Insurance are expected to stay as they are, and corporation tax is set to are still at 25% for large companies. Pubs and live music venues in England have also been promised a 20% business rates cut from April 2027.
The areas startups care about most are still unconfirmed. Capital gains tax, entrepreneur and share-scheme reliefs, employer costs and support for investment are all open, and pre-Budget commentary has said little about tech or scale-up funding in particular.
Capital Gains Tax Is Where Founders Have The Most To Lose
With the 2026/27 capital gains rate fixed at 18% or 24% and the exempt threshold down to a paltry £3,000, taxpayers have little shield left.
Potential reforms being kicked around include rate hikes and ending the tax-free allowance altogether, although reports this month say the Chancellor has ruled out aligning the tax with income tax. Any of them would hit startups hard, because founder wealth is tied up in illiquid shares instead of liquid cash.
Targeted reliefs for entrepreneurs face similar scrutiny. Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) climbed to 14% before reaching 18% in April 2026 under a £1 million lifetime cap, while Investors’ Relief is now 18% too. Further tweaks to both are still on the cards. Meanwhile, startups with employee shareholders want the Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) scheme protected following its expansion in April 2026, which doubled the option cap to £6 million and opened access to companies with up to 500 staff.
Employers are watching their own costs too. Employer National Insurance rose from 13.8% to 15% in April 2025, and the threshold at which it’s paid fell from £9,100 to £5,000. Reversing that would be expensive, so targeted cuts for people entering the job market are seen as the more likely route.
Support for investment has the least detail of all. EIS and VCT company investment limits were doubled from April 2026, with a £24 million lifetime limit for standard companies, but previews say little on R&D, EIS, SEIS, VCT or AI funding. That leaves scale-ups with plenty to ask for and little to go on.
To find out what the startup community is hoping for, we asked experts: what do you hope and expect to see for startups, investors and tech in the Autumn Budget on 28 October, particularly on capital gains tax, scale-up funding and employer costs?
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Our Experts
- Jon Maloney, Co-Founder, Century Business Finance
- Chris Sees, CEO and SME Expert, Hoxton Mix
- Adrian Hancock, Founder and Chairman, Clear Technology Group
- Robert Engeham, Director, Your Company Formations
- Aled Williams, Remson IT
- Mark Pugachev, CEO, Motenza Capital
- Manan Shah, Co-Founder, Solar4Good
- Jayne Sibley, CEO and Co-Founder, Sibstar
Jon Maloney, Co-Founder, Century Business Finance
“The Chancellor’s Autumn Budget could have implications for UK SMEs, particularly amidst economic uncertainty. We know that many SMEs feel anxious in the lead-up to the Budget, but the concern for many will be whether the Chancellor introduces measures to ease financial pressure and support growth.
“From April 2025, Employer National Insurance increased from 13.8% to 15% while the Secondary Threshold fell to £5,000. Although the Employment Allowance increased to £10,500, providing some relief for smaller employers, labour-intensive sectors, such as hospitality, retail and construction, are likely to feel the greatest impact.
“The key for business owners is to focus on understanding confirmed changes, assessing their financial impact and taking the proactive steps necessary to protect cash flow.”
Chris Sees, CEO and SME Expert, Hoxton Mix
“After 16 years of working with more than 100,000+ small businesses, what I’d like to see from this Budget is some breathing room for SMEs. Real, measurable breathing room.
“Entrepreneurs and founders of small businesses don’t need another short-term incentive or complicated scheme. We need greater certainty over what it is going to cost to run and grow our businesses. The cost of running an SME isn’t one single tax line. It’s the combination of employment costs, business rates, regulation, energy, professional fees and the sheer amount of administration that can determine whether a founder feels able to take the next step.
“The Government talks about growth, but growth requires businesses to have the confidence to invest. If you want SMEs to hire more people, invest in technology and expand, give them some certainty over their costs and make it easier to run the business day to day.
“The test of the Budget should be whether, six or twelve months after its announcement, a five-person business feels confident enough to become a ten-person business and so on. That’s the kind of breathing room that can actually translate into jobs and growth.”
Adrian Hancock, Founder and Chairman, Clear Technology Group
“What I’d hope to see is backing the North and businesses across the UK to use technology, not just build it. Britain is good at AI research, but we’re worse at owning what comes out of it, and worse again at getting ordinary businesses to use it.
“I want to see growth funding, technical training and incentives for SMEs to modernise and use AI, which would do more for productivity than another strategy paper. With a Prime Minister who spent years as Mayor of Greater Manchester, I also want to see more support and funding for the growth of businesses in the North.
“However, despite my wishes, I’m worried we’ll see more squeezing of employers and their customers at the same time. I really hope the government thinks carefully about this, and it means businesses stop hiring as the cost of employing a person goes up. Tax jobs harder and you won’t just get fewer jobs. You’ll get less tax from the ones that are left.”
Robert Engeham, Director, Your Company Formations
“I want the budget to lift the VAT threshold to £100,000 rather than lower it. At £90,000, the threshold is a ceiling on growth for exactly the businesses rising fastest in our data: plumbing and heating firms up 17% as a share of new companies this year, builders up 13% and taxi operators up 24%. These are companies that may stop at £89,000 of turnover on purpose.
“I also want the budget to tell us now what dividend tax, Business Asset Disposal Relief and the small profits rate of corporation tax will be until 2029, and then leave them alone.
“Finally, to support businesses outside of London. Scotland’s share of new UK companies rose 5% this year; Birmingham had 15,915 new companies in eight months and Manchester 11,308, with Edinburgh, Motherwell and Norwich the fastest risers. If mayors are to keep a share of what is raised locally, measure them on companies formed and taking on their first employee, and let some of that money reach a business in its first year rather than only the council that hosts it.”
Aled Williams, Remson IT
“My hope for this Budget isn’t more grants, it’s grants that small businesses can actually use. Too many come with conditions that rule SMEs out. A local growth grant we recently looked at excluded staffing costs entirely, yet for a tech business, people are the growth. Match-funded schemes have the same problem: if you need to find tens of thousands up front to unlock support, most small firms simply can’t apply.
“That matters, because the IT, cyber security and AI sector has huge growth potential, and small specialist firms are where much of that growth will come from, creating skilled jobs in local economies across the UK.
“So I’d like to see funding that covers hiring, lower match-funding thresholds for small firms, and targeted employer NIC relief for businesses taking on skilled staff. On capital gains tax, stability matters more than generosity: founders plan years ahead.”
Mark Pugachev, CEO, Motenza Capital
“What I hope to see in the Budget: leave founder CGT reliefs alone. Business Asset Disposal Relief and EMI exist for one reason: to make starting a company worth the risk instead of taking a salary. Raise CGT rates or shrink the exempt amount and you are not taxing the rich, you are taxing the exit of the person who built the thing. That changes behaviour. Founders hold companies longer, deals slow, and the scale-up funding the government wants dries up at the source.
“Investors can live with a number they know. What kills investment is rules that move every year. The cheapest lever Treasury has is certainty: lock the framework for five years and capital will show up.”
Manan Shah, Co-Founder, Solar4Good
“As a growing UK energy business, what we want most from this Budget is stability. Solar and battery storage are long-term investments for households and businesses, and every time the rules or incentives shift, customers pause and growing installers like us pause hiring with them.
“Two things would make a real difference. First, help with employer costs, because skilled installers are the bottleneck for scaling and NIC rises land hardest on firms that are still growing. Second, simple incentives for small businesses to invest in their own on-site energy, so cutting their bills doesn’t depend on a finance team approving a five-year payback. Clear, long-term signals will do more for scale-ups in this sector than any single headline rate.”
Jayne Sibley, CEO and Co-Founder, Sibstar
“Female entrepreneurs have already shown what they can achieve with a fraction of the investment available to men. Businesses founded entirely by women received just 2% of UK equity investment in 2025, yet women continue to build successful businesses, create jobs and bring new ideas to market.
“Having founded Sibstar, I’ve seen first-hand how much difference investment can make. There are countless other female entrepreneurs with ideas that could make a real difference, and giving them the funding to succeed would significantly benefit the wider economy too. Research estimates that removing barriers to scaling female-led businesses could unlock £310 billion in annual economic output for the UK.
“The Government’s Invest in Women Taskforce is a positive step, but the Chancellor must use the Autumn Budget to turn these commitments into investment that reaches female founders. Women have already demonstrated what they can achieve. We just need to give more of them the opportunity to go further.”
