Research says UK clean-tech companies feel optimistic

Defying the wider economic uncertainty, the UK’s clean-tech companies have become more confident about their prospects in the last year.

The 312 companies surveyed listed their own growth prospects, technical strength, current sales pipeline and market position as the key factors driving this optimism. Government legislation and policies were also given as reasons for confidence.

However, fundraising is essential for growth and 29 per cent of the companies interviewed cited a lack of access to finance as the main obstacle to expansion. This issue is even more acute for smaller companies with revenues of less than £2m where the number of companies concerned about access to finance rose to 40 per cent.

Nevertheless, more than half (57 per cent) of the companies surveyed are planning on raising funding in the next year, 77 per cent are planning to recruit in the next 12 months and 37 per cent plan to move into new export markets in the next two years.

Overall, the UK was most cited as a good country to locate a clean-tech business, with Germany ranked second and the US ranked third. Only about one in five companies indicated they would consider moving their headquarters from the UK mainly owing to funding problems they believed would be less of a problem in other countries.