1,900 Scottish jobs in pipeline thanks to British Business Bank support
“The latest impact figures show that our programmes are reaching businesses across the country” – Mark Sterritt, British Business Bank
Some 1,900 jobs are expected to be created thanks to the support provided to hundreds of Scottish firms by the government-backed British Business Bank.
In its third annual impact report, the bank also estimates that the supported companies will generate £800 million in additional turnover, which will deliver a forecast uplift in output of £300m to Scotland’s economy over the lifetime of the finance they have received.
One of the key drivers of this impact is the bank’s £150m Investment Fund for Scotland, which has so far delivered some £36.5m through 92 investments, reaching 83 smaller businesses and leveraging a further £33.9m in private sector finance. Together, this has brought total investment into Scottish businesses to more than £70m to date.
The bank newly supported 1,500 smaller businesses north of the Border in the 2025/26 financial year, with these firms expected to create a forecast 1,900 new jobs and support a further 15,500 existing jobs.
Mark Sterritt, managing director at the British Business Bank’s local growth team, said: “The British Business Bank continues to play an important role in supporting Scotland’s smaller businesses to invest, grow and create jobs. The latest impact figures show that our programmes are reaching businesses across the country, helping them access the finance they need to innovate, scale and realise their ambitions.
“Through initiatives such as the Investment Fund for Scotland and our growing support for regional innovation clusters, we are helping to address long-standing funding gaps and unlock opportunities for businesses in all parts of Scotland. We look forward to building on this momentum and working with even more ambitious firms in the year ahead.”
The bank said it was also expanding support to Glasgow city region with a new £8.5m “innovation cluster”, helping drive more equity investment into businesses operating in the eight priority Industrial strategy sectors.
The Glasgow city region cluster, which backs university spin-outs and “deep-tech” scale ups, has already seen investment into Highway Data Systems, a Glasgow-based tech company that automates quality assurance for road construction projects. A £1.25m funding round was completed through the Investment Fund for Scotland, managed by Maven Capital Partners.
The impact report underlines the bank’s ongoing commitment to Scotland as well as other UK nations and regions. About 87 per cent of the businesses newly supported during 2025/26 were based outside of London, helping to deliver more than a £100m boost to economic output in each and every UK nation and region, the bank noted.
Across the UK in 2025/26, the bank supported a total of £9.4 billion of finance for smaller businesses. The funding benefited some 38,000 UK businesses, including around 30,000 businesses the bank had not previously helped to fund.
The British Business Bank was established in 2014 and acts as the UK government’s economic development bank. Its mission is to drive economic growth by helping smaller businesses get the finance they need to “start, scale and stay in the UK”.
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