The Department for Business and Trade has announced it will scrap the EU’s Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR), in a move which has major repercussions for small business employment law in 2023.

Under the new plans, the government will remove the requirements for recording working time and reduce the complexity of calculating holiday entitlement.

The government claims the reforms will take advantage of post-Brexit freedoms and remove red tape for business owners. Critics argue that the changes will make it easier for bad bosses to take advantage of their workforce.

Below, we outline what the new policy is, and how it might impact your people management strategy.

SMEs no longer required to report on working time hours

In a policy paper, entitled Smarter Regulation to Grow the UK Economy, the Department for Business and Trade outlined major reforms to WTR. Notably, the removal of a retained EU law that requires working hour records to be kept for almost all members of the workforce.

Under the proposals, the EU’s Working Time Directive will remain. The law limits UK employees to 48-hour working weeks  – as well as how many hours workers can operate at night.

The existing law does not currently apply to certain employment groups, such as those who are self employed. However, employers who do currently follow working time rules will no longer be required to keep records to ensure that the time limit is being followed.

Certainly, the reduction in administrative requirements is welcome news for small business owners. If employees are currently tasked with logging their working hours, removing this activity will free up more time to carry out other activities that add value.

There is also a financial incentive. Currently if working hour records aren’t kept then the risk to employers is an unlimited fine.

Nonetheless, the reforms will also make it easier for negligent bosses to overwork their employees. Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Council (TUC) criticised the government’s stated aims, calling them “a gift to rogue employers looking to exploit workers and put them through long, gruelling shifts without enough rest”.

Last year, we cautioned against a bonfire of regulations that the government had planned, which would have seen thousands of employee protections instigated by the European Union revoked at the end of 2023.

Whitehall has since backtracked on this declaration, but the ‘Smarter Regulation’ bill shows that some laws are still at risk.

Holiday pay changes could mean increased productivity, but worsened health and wellbeing

The bill also recommends the introduction of rolled-up holiday pay for UK workers. If holiday pay is rolled-up, employees are routinely paid an additional sum of money with their basic wage.

The resulting payslip is labelled as “holiday pay”, even though the employee is not actually taking any time off. When the staff member actually comes to take a holiday, they are paid nothing, as they have already had the money.

Workers taking their holiday as pay, without taking the days off, potentially means increased productivity for the business. Particularly in the current economic climate, employees on lower salaries often do not want to take their leave if the cost of being off work is higher.

However, certain firms will find the proposed changes thornier than others. Practically speaking, employment contracts will need updating. Small firms with operations in the UK and EU will have to think about different approaches to how holiday pay is calculated.

Rolling-up holiday pay was also previously ruled illegal in 2006 (except for in specific cases such as zero-hours contracts). The practice was deemed to dissuade employees from taking adequate rest time unless they have budgeted carefully and saved their holiday pay.

This can be disastrous for mental health and wellbeing, and is more likely to lead to stress and burnout.

To encourage individuals to take sufficient time off, best practice is for employers to pay staff when holiday is taken, rather than spreading the costs out over the year.

New bill is good news for temporary workers

One advantage of the proposal is that it will make the confusing holiday pay claims process simpler for temp employees.

In temporary employment, workers are contracted only for a specific period of time. For example, fixed-term, project- or task-based contracts, as well as seasonal or casual work like day labour.

It has been estimated that millions of pounds of holiday pay has been left unclaimed because temps didn’t realise they were entitled to it when their contract came to an end.

Julia Kermode is founder of IWORK, the body that champions temporary and independent workers. Praising the announcement, Kermode said: “At a time when every penny counts, the move to roll up holiday pay will help hundreds of thousands of temps make ends meet.”

Demand for temporary staff has been steadily increasing for UK businesses, as lingering uncertainty around the economic outlook sees companies avoid committing to long-term contracts.

According to a survey from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), temporary job roles in the UK have surged from 52.5 points to 53.3.

In the current financial climate, recruiting temp staff brings benefits aplenty for businesses. Temporary employees can be recruited quickly and easily to cover absences such as long term sickness, maternity or paternity leave, and sudden departure. Post-Great Resignation, as firms grapple with high staff turnover, this is particularly beneficial.

Small business owners should consider full impact of change

Anything that might affect employees’ wages, working patterns, and wellbeing requires careful consideration from business owners. For the moment, the more complex elements of the policy – who it will impact, how strictly it will be enforced – are unclear.

The government claims the changes will help to save small businesses an estimated £1 billion per year by shortening admin processes. That will not be the case for every business, however.

Those with operations or employees in both the EU and the UK will surely find the system more confused than ever. Stickier areas of people management, such as unpaid leave or those with a flexible bank holiday policy, will also be difficult for employers to plan for if holiday pay is rolled-up.

We recommend managers take the time to properly review the policy and how it might impact every individual in the business.

There are benefits for SMEs to enjoy from the Smarter Regulation bill. But they must be balanced out by a nuanced, transparent approach that keeps the employee, not the employer, at the centre.

Frustrated Gen Z employees are quitting and exposing their toxic jobs live on TikTok, hinting at a generational disconnect between companies and their young workforce.

Whilst some workers still opt for the traditional method of sending a nicely worded notice email , Gen Zers are opting for sitting in front of a camera and airing their work grievances.

These live quitting videos often gather thousands if not millions of views, suggesting lots of other young workers relate to feeling trapped in toxic workplaces.

Research by Rethinkly reveals over a quarter (28%) of Gen Z employees feel they have no voice in the workplace. Further, 23% of Gen Zs confess enduring unmanageable stress and 98% say they are dealing with symptoms of burnout.

Gen Z is expected to make up 27% of the workforce by 2025 so the issues exhibited on TikTok need addressing.

Where does the workplace disconnect come from?

Although recent research shows that 74% of business leaders believe Gen Z is more difficult to work with than any other generation, this can be misleading.

Llive streaming quitting your job is symptomatic of when Gen Z entered the office. Many young workers started their careers online after completing their degrees virtually due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

Having to transition between working virtually and coming into the office, experts say young workers struggle to navigate interpersonal relationships, the etiquette of work friendships, and professional boundaries.

According to LinkedIn research, 18 to 25 year olds are the least confident of all generations in their current job or role. Further, a global survey of 10,000 workers found that Gen Zers were unable to switch off from work compared to other groups.

Lack of understanding from older managers can quickly yield frustrated employees and even public resignations

According to Andrew Jackson, co-founder of Rethinkly, “this behaviour is most likely the result of a negative company culture in which mutual respect and communication have completely broken down.”

Bridging the generational gap

What can businesses do to stop frustrated employees from hitting ‘record’ and quitting en masse? The key lies in creating spaces to understand why employees are unhappy and what can be done about it.

“Companies must consider all of the tools and processes they have in place to ensure employees have safe spaces to air their concerns in a healthy way before reaching this point,” advises Jackson.

“It has never been more important for organisations to create the best working environment possible to prevent this from happening.”

Gen Zers have taken to social media to quit in part because they’re digital natives, but importantly, because it’s a platform where their complaints feel validated.

If a platform can be created internally in a company so that employees feel comfortable unveiling their work grievances, lots of potential Quittok videos could be deterred.

Businesses with 1-49 employees will hire three unsuitable candidates this year, on average, costing them thousands in recruitment fees and productivity losses.

Global hiring platform Indeed surveyed 1,000 business owners to explore the number of incompatible appointments a firm makes each year. Results indicate that a tenth of small companies will make five mis-hires annually, on average.

Facing mounting worker shortages, SMEs are growing increasingly desperate to find talent. Indeed’s research is a reminder to employers that, if taking a chance on an ill-matched applicant, the financial risk of getting it wrong could outweigh the potential benefits.

Business owners are now being advised to probe their hiring process for areas where unsuitable candidates might be slipping through the cracks.

Inefficient recruiting makes a bad hire harder to spot

We previously identified overly-long application processes as one of the top job advert mistakes that are putting off candidates. Now, it seems that the issue is also frustrating business owners.

More than half (55%) of all employers said hiring is inefficient with the most common complaints about the traditional model being that the hiring process took too long (68%).

Two thirds (67%) of companies said mismatched candidates got too far in the process.

Candidates rejected in the latter stages of the hiring process were more frequently turned down for technical reasons such as right-to-work issues (38%), which could have been identified earlier using right to work checks.

Employers are increasingly searching abroad for talented candidates due to a shortage of skilled labour in the UK. Earlier this year, Startups research showed that searches for overseas work visas had hit a record high as many organisations look further afield to recruit for sought-after skill sets.

Salary ambiguity causes mismatches

The survey also revealed the most common reasons why applications broke down. Most cited were salary expectations (37%), expectations of role (37%) and lack of hybrid working options (35%).

Lack of transparency on salary, or available benefits and perks like flexible working, is often another complaint from job seekers. Startups heard from Dan Hudson, founder of the careers app GiGL, who says employers who leave off this information must take the blame for creating an inefficient process.

“[Remuneration] is the most popular thing that candidates look at when they look at an employer profile,” Hudson reveals. “Salary and the benefits are at the top of the list of questions that candidates ask about. Why would you not give the information?”

What is the cost of a bad hire?

The cost of a bad hire is estimated to be three times higher than the salary paid. This penalty is especially devastating for small businesses, which tend to have smaller cash reserves than large-scale employers.

Based on the annual salary for a worker being paid the Living Wage (£19,000 per year before tax or pension deductions), the estimated fee facing SMEs for three bad hires a year is £57,000.

Inflation has left today’s economy dangling at the edge of a recession. SMEs are being forced to contend against countless financial pressures including record-high energy bills. In this context, hiked staffing costs is a major cause for concern – particularly as statistics show planned redundancies have grown to near COVID levels.

Raj Mukherjee, EVP and General Manager at Indeed, said: “The cost of making the wrong hire can be measured in hours lost and financial loss from open roles, neither of which any business can afford.”

Stronger brand identity could be key to finding the ‘right’ candidate

The Indeed survey suggests small businesses identify mismatches a third quicker than larger companies. On average, SMEs took the shortest time (12 days) to realise a new employee was unsuitable for the role compared to 18 days for large businesses.

Inadequate soft skills (50%), such as communication and team working, were identified by small businesses as the biggest cause of mismatch, beating role-specific hard ones.

Listing company values is one way to emphasise organisational culture and provide a clearer definition of the skills needed to succeed in a role – a mutually beneficial step that will help the job seeker as well as the recruiter.

LinkedIn says it has observed a 154% increase in values-related terms on entry-level job posts between 2020 and 2022. This is likely due to meaningful work (roles that align closely with a person’s own beliefs and ethics) becoming a greater priority for employees.

Job descriptions should communicate the behaviours bosses most value in an employee, like honesty and empathy. This will provide important context for the candidate on whether they will work well with coworkers and managers.

More on this: could small businesses use AI to plug worker shortages?

According to government statistics, 34% of medium sized companies and 15% of small businesses have already adopted at least one type of artificial intelligence technology.

Research by Pragmatiq found that business management, ecommerce, and marketing are where AI is most used, whether businesses are aware of it or not.

These statistics follow predictions of vertiginous growth in AI technology usage, with annual expenditure expected to surpass £35 billion by 2025.

AI is also predicted to eliminate 85 million jobs and create 97 million new roles by 2025.

Is artificial intelligence taking over?

As dystopian as these statistics sound, according to a Department of Science, Innovation and Technology report, the AI revolution will be a gradual shift rather than a technological Big Bang.

For instance, there is still widespread reticence towards the adoption of AI technology due to knowledge gaps and low public trust.

The government is currently working on bridging this trust gap through its strategy outlined in the AI whitepaper, which aims to create a robust policy program to regulate AI.

Moreover, skills gaps are making it harder to hire the right people to use the new technology. In fact, only one in ten global workers have in-demand artificial intelligence skills.

Nevertheless, there is an acknowledgement that AI represents opportunities for growth. According to government figures, 269 new AI companies have been registered on average each year since 2011.

AI companies also generated £10.6bn in AI related revenues, employed more than 50,000 people in AI related roles, and secured £18.8bn in private investment since 2016.

Where do small businesses sit?

Although AI’s adoption is gradually growing and generating profit, only 39% of small businesses believe it will have a positive impact.

This is due to the funding and product development gaps that SMEs run into when implementing AI projects, leaving the big cake slices to large enterprises.

Of the 3,710 UK AI companies that are currently registered, 28% were small businesses and 60% were micro businesses. However, 71% of all AI revenue (£7.6bn) was generated by large firms despite just making up 4% of the AI business population.

Small and medium sized companies together account for just over a quarter (£2.8bn) of AI revenue.

The skewed contribution between SMEs and big tech reflects how disparately capital is allocated. Most importantly, it illustrates the risk aversion that still handicaps SMEs seeking venture capital investment in the UK.

As a result, AI SMEs are pushed to rely more heavily on external finance to support AI product and service development.

Democratising the AI revolution

The spread of AI is arguably unstoppable. However, it would seem small businesses are quite rightly worried about being given a mere supporting role in the start of a new technological era.

An academic stakeholder, providing a statement for the DSIT report, said, “As a sector becomes more aware of AI and use cases, you will start to see more people dabbling, that will catalyse others.”

However, in order for this to occur, sectors need funding and access to the right tools. Feedback from stakeholders and businesses in the DSIT report suggests SMEs need funding, the right tools and more public sector contracts to generate greater adoption

Whether it’s by improving access to R&D tax cuts for small businesses or providing more support in securing venture capital for AI-related projects, policymakers have an important role to play in democratising the adoption of AI in the UK.

The traditional 9-5 is dead. Four in five UK businesses now believe flexible working is critical to success. With previously progressive policies like remote working now the norm, the top employee benefit in town is the four-day work week.

After the success of two six-month trials in 2022 and 2024, more businesses are seeing the benefit of four-day work weeks. And while not completely common, the demand for flexible working, changing employee expectations, and high competition for talent mean businesses are rethinking how work gets done.

Below you’ll find a list of the organisations that have introduced reduced hours, without a loss of pay, in the last two years. We’ve also catalogued seven case studies from early adopters to give curious small employers a better understanding of how the policy works in practice.

UK companies that have introduced a four-day week

To help business owners stay on top of the trend, we’ll be keeping the list below updated with news from any UK employers that implement or pilot a four-day working week.

• Hackney House

In September 2025, it was reported that interiors brand Hackney House had permanently moved to a four-day working week and was accredited as a “Gold Standard” four-day week employer by the 4 Day Week Foundation.

As part of this move, the company announced its “Nature Fridays” initiative, encouraging employees to spend time in nature, as well as improve wellbeing, creativity, and productivity.

• Concrete Youth

Concrete Youth is a sensory theatre for people with multiple learning disabilities. In April 2025, the business announced a four-day work week for employees to improve work-life balance and wellbeing, as well as offering the Real Living Wage for all staff and freelancers.

Joe Ryle, Campaign Director of the 4 Day Week Foundation, said: “With 50% more free time, moving to a four-day week gives workers the freedom to be able to live a happier and better life.”

• Camloc Motion Control

Leicester-based manufacturer Camloc Motion Control permanently adopted a four-day working week in March 2025, with employees working Monday-Thursday from 8:00am to 5:15pm. According to the company’s press release, findings reveal that a four-day work week lowers carbon footprint (due to less commuting and reduced factory floor and office operations), a healthier work environment, and improved productivity.

“By allowing our team more time to rest and recharge, we’re creating a working environment that promotes focus, creativity and job satisfaction – all the elements essential in delivering the high standards of customer service we strive for,” a Camloc spokesperson said.

• Custom Heat

After a successful trial, heating and plumbing company Custom Heat adopted a four-day work week in March 2025.

The company says the trial not only improved employee wellbeing, but also gave it a competitive edge in attracting talent, as job applications advertising this benefit surged by 250%. Meanwhile, staff turnover had dropped by 67%.

• PR Dispatch

London-based PR company, PR Dispatch, transitioned to a four-day week in November 2022. Every Friday, the office shuts down to ensure staff can benefit from the flexibility of a three day weekend.

Founder, Rosie Davies-Smith told Startups: “By Thursday evenings, I’ve realised that I’m crossing off more tasks on my to-do list, thanks to increased focus. I’ve observed an overall increase in productivity among the team, which has positively impacted PR Dispatch’s output.”

• Awin

One of the largest employers to test out a four-day work week last year was the global affiliate platform Awin, which employs over 1,300 people. Following the trial, 94% of employees felt their work-life balance had improved. Most excitingly, business profits grew by 13%. Awin gave staff the option to work a flexible week in February 2023.

• Camlas

Welsh PR firm, Camlas, became the first public affairs company in Wales to introduce a four-day week in May 2023 following a successful trial. The company says it hopes the new way of working will help staff keep a successful “work-life balance” and thrive “both professionally and personally”.

• Bex Design and Print

In June 2023, industrial printer Bex Design & Print announced that its print factory in Calne, Wiltshire, would completely shut down to save electricity, reduce employee car journeys, and improve productivity. Managing director Mel Conway added: “Giving our factory team a three-day weekend means they can come back to work every Monday feeling refreshed.”

• Springbok AI

Also in June 2023, Springbok AI, a leading AI consultancy, announced it would implement 4-day working week for staff. The move follows the success of a year-long pilot that resulted in a 16% increase in employee wellbeing.

Victoria Albrecht, CEO and Co-founder of Springbok AI said: “This move reaffirms our commitment to innovation and underscores the importance we place on our people’s wellbeing.”

• Tyler Grange

Tyler Grange, an environmental consultancy firm based in London, announced it would implement a four-day week in June 2023 after a successful trial run in 2022.

In a blog explaining the decision, co-founder Simon Ursell said: “We found a four-day week is more productive, we do about 106% of the work in four days that we used to do in five. And that’s because we are better at it, not because we are compressing hours.”

• BE YELLOW

PR and marketing agency, BE YELLOW announced staff would all work a four-day week from day one of employment in July 2023, giving employees one day a week to focus on professional and personal development.

Speaking to Startups about the benefits of adopting this shortened schedule, BE YELLOW co-founder Hayley Knight revealed: “I have noticed reduced stress levels, increased happiness, and more time for creativity and developing ideas for my clients, as well as more time for my loved ones.”

• Lunio

Manchester-based software company Lunio announced it had adopted a four-day week in March 2024, following a successful trial period carried out last year.

Commenting on the decision, Beth Lang, who is Head of People at Lunio, said: “Once we were in the middle of our trial and hitting our targets, still covering everything that needed to be done each week, a 4-day work week was basically a done deal.”

• Fletcher’s

Popular Plymouth-based restaurant chain, Fletcher’s moved its front-of-house staff to a four-day week in late May 2024, in order to give workers a better work-life balance.

Owner Fletcher Andrews said the change was also in response to inconsistency in bookings, which has seen Tuesday and Wednesday become less popular among patrons.

• WBR Group

The Bolton-based firm, a provider of SSAS services, announced in early June 2024 that it has adopted a four-day week with no loss of salary, after a successful trial in January.

According to The Business Desk, WBR’s feedback shows that employees are using their new-found time to embrace creativity, innovation, education, family time and rejuvenation.

• Almond Financial

In January 2025, the Lincoln-based financial advisor said it will introduce a four-day week this year. The change will see the office close on Fridays, without a reduction in earnings for staff. Commenting on the news, Principal Financial Advisor, Sam Robinson, argued that, “innovative working practices can succeed in finance when properly implemented”.

Other UK companies that have adopted a four-day week include:

• 3D Issue
• 448 Studio
• 5 Squirrels Ltd
• 64 Million Artists
• 92 Minutes
• Accurise Ltd
• Acuity Solutions
• Advantage Business Partnerships
• Advice Cloud
• Advice Direct Scotland
• Agile Communication Agency
• Agricultural Recruitment Specialists
• AKA Case Management
• Alliance Publishing Trust
• Amity Community Action CIC
• Andy Matthews Studio
• Arts Marketing Association
• Ascendancy
• Atlas Translations
• AWO
• Awscape
• Baker Consultants
• Barefoot Architects
• Barking and Dagenham Giving
• Bedrock Learning
• BiBO
• Big Potato Games
• Bimble Solar
• BJP Consulting Group Ltd
• Blink
• Bookishly
• Boxfish
• BrandPipe
• Breaks
• Brett Nicholls Associates
• British Ecological Society
• British Society for Rheumatology
• Brook
• Butcher Bayley Architects
• Cairn Ecology
• Camlas
• Causeway Irish Housing Association
• Centre for Local Economic Strategies
• Centre for Thriving Places Ltd
• Charity Bank
• Citizens Advice Gateshead
• City to Sea
• Civo
• Climate Policy Radar
• CMD: Studio (Villainous Games Studio)
• CMG Technologies
• Cobry
• Coltech Global
• Common Knowledge
• Cooked Illustrations
• Counting King Limited
• CRASH Services
• Creatio
• Crystallised
• Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland
• Dash Accounting Services
• DataLase
• DigiLab
• Digital Guerrilla Consultancy
• Earth Science Partnership
• Earthly
• East Marsh United
• Edith Garland Architecture
• Elektra Lighting
• Element Four
• Elliott & Company Consulting Engineers
• Energiesprong UK
• Epic HR
• Escape the City
• Escentral
• ESG Gaming
• Esteem Training
• Everyday
• Evolved Search
• FLOCC
• FMC Talent
• Formedix
• Fortem People
• Forthstar
• Forward Carers
• Forward Space
• Four Day Week Ltd
• Furness Insurance Services
• Future Economy Scotland
• Future Projects
• Geeks For Social Change
• Giant Digital
• Girling Jones Ltd
• Global Partners Digital
• Good Ancestor Movement
• Gracefruit
• Greenpost
• Ground And Project Consultants Ltd
• Gungho Marketing
• Happy
• HearFocus
• Hello Heat Pumps
• Hello Starling
• Highfield Professional Solutions
• Highgate IT Solutions
• Hutch Games Ltd
• Independent Food Aid Network
• Infigo
• Intercultural Youth Scotland
• Interlink
• Jerba Campavans
• JMK Solicitors
• Kairos Women+
• Kinfolk Network CIC
• LEaF Translations
• Legacy Events
• Lemongrass Marketing LTD
• LIT Communication
• Literal Humans
• London Funders
• Loud Mouth Media
• LoveGunn
• LUX – The Food & Drink Agency
• Madeby.studio
• Maggie Chapman MSP
• Marketing Signals
• Matthew Edwards & Co
• MATS Consultancy
• Mavin Powercube
• Melville Housing Association
• Mental Health Foundation
• Merthyr Valleys Homes
• Middle Child Theatre
• Middleton Co-operating
• Mox
• MRL Consulting
• MSDS Marine & MSDS Heritage
• Muckle Media
• Mutual
• MycoPunks
• Native Ecology
• NEON
• Neonhive
• New Economics Foundation
• New Vision Digital Marketing
• Noteworthy Support Limited
• Opportunity Green
• Oriel Square
• Original Consultants Ltd
• Ormiston Wire Ltd
• Pale Fox Esports
• Paul David Smith Photography
• Paul Morgan & Associates Wealth
• Peak PEO
• People
• Planning Aid Scotland
• Plaudit Agency
• Pollard Media Ltd
• Pool
• Portcullis Legals
• Poteris
• Pressure Drop
• Principles Agency
• PTHR
• Punch Creative
• PureFluent
• Quality of Life Foundation
• Queercircle
• Reboot
• Red Giraffe
• Resilience Brokers
• Reward Agency
• Richard John Andrews Ltd
• Rise
• Safer Fostering
• Schuco
• Scottish Community Safety Network
• Scotland’s International Development Alliance
• Scottish Green Party
• Secure Digital Exchange Limited (SDX Messaging)
• Sensat
• SEOMG!
• Shout Loud Social
• Sidequest Ltd
• Sinister Fish Games
• Social Enterprise Direct
• Social for Good
• Softer Success
• Sounds Like These
• Split Banana
• SQS
• Stagecast
• STC Expeditions
• STOP AIDS
• StreamGO
• Studio Cotton
• Synergy Vision
• T-Cup Studios
• Tai Pawb
• Tailored Thinking
• TBL Services LTD
• Talewind
• Target Composites Ltd
• Target Publishing
• Team Custard Kraken
• Teampoint
• Technoevent
• The Agile Communications Agency
• The Beacon
• The Circle
• The UPAC Group
• The Young Women’s Movement
• Think Productive
• This Is Beyond
• THRYVE
• Time Appointments
• Tribera
• Trigger
• Tyler Grange Group
• Unify Learning & Development
• Uniqodo
• UPAC Group
• Vault City Brewing
• Venture Stream
• VerriBerri
• Vetro Recruitment
• Waterwise
• We Are Purposeful
• WeBuyVintage
• Welcome to the Jungle
• Wellbeing Economy Alliance
• Whering
• Whyfield
• Wolf & Moon
• Women’s Budget Group
• Woven Ink Studio Limited
• Xaso
• Ynni Sir Gar
• You HR Consultancy
• Zetteler
• Zync Digital

7 inspirational examples of businesses with a four-day week (and what you can learn from them)

Some employers are ahead of the game. Here are seven companies that have been working a four-day week since pre-2023, and what they’ve learned from the experience.

1. Atom Bank

In November 2021, the app-based lender became the UK’s biggest employer to trial a four-day week. Testing complete, Atom Bank reported a 49% increase in applications for roles at the bank, and a 13% increase in employee engagement year-on-year. The bank’s 424 employees have since moved to working 34 hours for the same pay.

Anne-Marie Lister, Chief People Officer at Atom bank, said: “We are a progressive bank and a progressive employer. Our experience in planning for and moving to a four-day week has shown that it is possible for businesses to do this and bring huge benefits to their people.”

2. Earthly

Startups-100 firm, Earthly is a green technology platform that helps businesses remove at least one billion tons of carbon from nature by 2030. The company’s culture is similarly forward-thinking, with its employee base working 32 hours per week with no loss of pay.

The perk has not been given in isolation, however. On top of this, every staff member is fully remote at the company and can choose to work flexible hours between 7am and 8pm.

Earthly also offers generous maternal and paternal leave – two popular benefits and perks that are in high demand amongst working parents.

3. JMK Solicitors

JMK Solicitors is one of the first employers in Northern Ireland to commit to and implement a four-day week for all employees, with no reduction in pay. Since January 2020, all JMK staff have had their work hours reduced from 37.5 hours to 30 hours with no loss of pay.

Michelle Murphy, HR and Operations Manager at JMK Solicitors revealed that the shift had made the company more resilient to disruption caused by the pandemic, stating it “prepared our people for the tsunami of rapid developments that the COVID crisis brought about.”

4. London Landmark Hotel

Five-star hotel, The London Landmark is one of the few hospitality firms that caters for a four-day week. Last January, executive head chef Gary Klaner unveiled the plans as part of a strategy to improve overall work-life balance for its chefs.

For F&B businesses looking for inspiration, a smart recruitment strategy appears to have played a big role in the Landmark’s four-day success. In a press release, the hotel clarified that productivity was “maintained through a recruitment drive in January and February, which increased the number of kitchen staff that the hotel employs.”

5. Scoro

As an end-to-end work management software, it’s only fitting that Scoro has made managing work-life balance equally simple for its 140 employees.

In July 2022, after discovering how ‘unproductive’ Fridays were at the company (all system usage of Scoro’s platform goes down by 23% at the end of the week) every team member began working a 32-hour, four-day week. Crucially, with no drop in salary.

Founder and CEO, Fred Krieger thinks collaboration software has proved crucial to this success. “As long as companies consider their processes, and use the right technology, transitioning isn’t only possible – but potentially the best decision a company can make.”

6. Sensat

Sensat describes itself as a data company that helps firms to ‘make smarter decisions’. The successful implementation of a four-day week proves it’s more than qualified to advise.

Since March 2022, employees at the drone technology startup (which was also runner-up in our list of the top 100 startups for 2023) have enjoyed a 32 hour week on a full salary. It’s also had a hugely positive impact on organisational culture.

Sensat cofounder, James Dean, told us: “Through hybrid working, working a 4-day week, and having flexible hours, amongst other initiatives, we see our people naturally adapting the way they work to suit how they can best create value every day.”

7. Thryve Talent

As one of the fastest-growing global recruitment companies, we’d expect Thryve to be ahead of the game for flexible working.

Employees at Thryve work 8 hours each day with no reduction in pay and no increase in the hours worked on those days. Despite working directly with clients, Thryve states that it has consulted with numerous four-day week experts to work out the best operational approach.

Clearly, it’s working. The company is currently hiring for new roles, and it’s been certified Gold by 4 Day Week, a campaign group for flexible working.

What is the four-day work week?

A four-day workweek is a system of working where employees work full-time over four days, rather than the usual five.

While still far from commonplace, the idea has gained traction this year after early adopters reported a huge number of benefits, with SME employees even willing to take an 8% pay cut for it.

How does a four-day week work?

Many managers think they already know what a four-day work week looks like. Yet there are plenty who get it wrong by confusing the reduced hours blueprint for compressed hours.

For example, numerous large employers, including Metro Bank and Sainsbury’s, have introduced what they describe as a four-day week to employees. However, their staff must choose to work longer shifts to make up for their ‘lost’ fifth day. Some even specify that the benefit must come with a pay cut.

This misunderstanding is quickly becoming an urban myth. That’s why our list above only includes firms which propose a permanent 35-hour (or less) four-day week. Crucially, with no loss of pay.

How do I introduce a four-day week at my company?

This is the exact question that today’s employers should be asking themselves.

According to research reported by ACCA, 70% of employees and 79% of recruiters expect a four-day week with no loss of pay will be in place by 2030.

Testing the strategy for yourself now, and discussing its strengths and weaknesses with colleagues, will ensure you maintain a competitive recruitment edge over rivals – who are almost certainly hosting similar conversations.

Certainly, we don’t recommend introducing a four-day work week without having a proper plan and strategy in place. Applications like free project management (PM) software can be used to completely manage the transition.

Business leaders can use a PM system to plot out milestones and objectives, as well as monitor progress. They can then review the data to analyse the results and make a well-informed decision on whether to progress.

Experts argue that new technologies could help to ensure a smooth transition to a four-day work week. Learn more about how to use AI to make four-day working a reality.

The increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) could be the key ingredient to boost the transition to a four-day working week, an HR expert suggests.

Ayming’s HR Barometer 2023 suggests that 64% of organisations support a four-day week and this figure will increase as AI allows employees to do the same amount of work in fewer hours.

Rising support for a four-day week follows a pilot where 56 of the 61 participating businesses announced they would extend the scheme after reporting a marked increase in productivity and job satisfaction.

After the trial, 39% of employees were less stressed and 71% had reduced levels of burnout. Levels of anxiety, fatigue and sleep issues decreased, while mental and physical health also improved.

Research shows that 7 in 10 employees intend to ask their employer to embrace the four-day week, showing that UK work dynamics could soon experience seismic changes.

AI as a benevolent force?

With the rising popularity of chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, the fear is technology will replace millions of white collar roles.

PwC analysed 200,000 jobs in 29 countries and found that 3% of jobs are at potential risk of automation by early 2020s. Its report also revealed that 44% of workers with lower level education were at risk of automation by the mid-2030s.

Whilst these figures are foreboding, generative AI has the power to boost productivity and change work culture. Goldman Sachs estimates that AI could eventually increase annual global GDP by 7%.

“The case for a four-day week was already strong, but AI could really seal the deal for workers and trigger a widespread transition to a shorter work week,” explains Scott Ward, Partner at business management consultancy Ayming UK.

“Although there is some level of anxiety about AI’s impact on labour needs, I’m confident job roles will adapt, and automation will take on a lot of the more mundane tasks that people currently have to do.”

A study conducted by Ayming in January of 200 senior HR leaders in the UK found that 30% of businesses are introducing AI or automation that will replace jobs. However, the study suggests this will improve work life and efficiency, saving people time and allowing them to focus on more important and rewarding tasks.

Whilst generative AI technology like ChatGPT could be a threat to some job roles, Ward believes the net result will be a win for the working world. “Although this might contribute to redundancies in some areas, it could equally improve work life, making tasks more efficient and allowing people to focus on more rewarding work.”

The changing work landscape

If the pandemic brought about any lessons is that work culture is not set in stone. Hybrid work patterns have gradually become the norm. The four-day work week is no longer the pipedream it would have been a couple of years ago.

According to Ayming, workplaces are now adopting more flexible attitudes and employee support.

73% of firms back the introduction of volunteer programmes, 72% support providing financial guidance to help employees manage the cost-of-living crisis, 72% are in favour of offering childcare solutions, and 70% support providing therapy for employees.

These flexible attitudes, however, are not simply a symptom of employers’ goodwill. The UK is currently in the midst of a staggering fall in motivation among UK workers.

According to Ayming UK, 89% of firms reported a decline in motivation and employee engagement over the last three years. Moreover, 26% of firms say they are likely to make redundancies in 2023 and 37% are reducing recruitment.

These statistics demonstrate there are push factors that are forcing work culture to shift to accommodate more flexibility and employee wellbeing to retain and attract talent. Therefore, employers should also be looking to nurture environments for meaningful and flexible work.

Prioritising flexible working

In this bleak employment environment, employers are looking for ways to implement more perks and flexibility without sacrificing profit.

A four-day week could boost employee retention and encourage more applicants to fill vacancies. 80% of employees consider flexible work arrangements as a deciding factor when evaluating job offers.

According to research by Sonovate, 58% of UK businesses currently offer flexible working in some form. This represents a 566% increase over the past seven years.

The four-day week is the latest innovation in flexible working and could similarly become the norm in the future. Therefore, employers who are seriously considering making this transition might be best positioned to attract and retain top talent in the market.

For entrepreneurs and CEOs that are nervous about decreasing revenue from adopting a four-day week, AI could be the solution to striking the balance between employee wellbeing and productivity.

TikTok has invited a select number of sellers to sign up to its latest version of TikTok Shop on Beta, before launching to the rest of the public.

Those who participate will be able to provide feedback for product improvement and get their hands on a 0% referral fee for the next 90 days.

A new and improved TikTok Shop could represent a mammoth business opportunity – the platform has over 1.6 billion users. 83% of these say TikTok plays a role in their purchase decisions, making it a prime platform for brand discovery.

It could also be a game changer for SMEs given that 47% of users say TikTok is the platform they use most to engage with smaller businesses.

Unlike its primary competitor Instagram Shop, TikTok Shop allows direct product buying from live streams and videos. The social commerce model will take 1.8% commission from sold products during the first 90 days, rising to 5% thereafter.

Can social commerce go TikTok viral?

Although the launch of TikTok Shop bodes well for business on paper, in practice its launch could be significantly more complicated.

This isn’t TikTok’s first ride in the rodeo of social commerce, after all. Culture clashes between TikTok’s Chinese owners and London staff tainted TikTok Shop’s UK launch in 2021.

Reports of burnout and tension between staff and former TikTok head of ecommerce Europe, Joshua Ma, led to an exodus of more than 20 members from the London team.

This rocky start was followed by a lack of traction, with the Shop operating at a loss and many live streams generating zero sales.

In sharp contrast, TikTok Shop has been a resounding success in Southeast Asia. In 2022, the platform reportedly racked up a gross merchandise value of $4.4 billion thanks to a network of agencies who manage livestream presenters and virtual shopfronts.

In comparison, social commerce in the UK is still in its nascent stages. In 2022, 22.4% of the population were ‘social buyers’. In China, this percentage was around 84% – one of the highest in the world.

In some ways, the new launch of TikTok Shop on Beta could be read as an attempt to clean the slate and compete against Meta’s Instagram social commerce model.

Could bad press get in the way?

Although TikTok is undoubtedly a popular platform, recent controversies have dented public trust in the app.

Just last month, TikTok was fined £12.7m for misusing children’s data and its CEO, Shou Zi, was questioned in the US Senate over concerns about data privacy and the company’s ties to the Chinese government. TikTok has also been banned from being installed on government and BBC devices.

Headlines exposing TikTok’s patchy data privacy could jeopardise TikTok Shop’s success, especially when considering users have to trust the app enough to hand over their payment details.

However, if lessons are learnt from TikTok Shop’s success in Southeast Asia and the dramatic episode between Ma and London staff, there’s hope.

TikTok will need to convince both sellers and shoppers that it has bolstered its data privacy security practices and that brands have fertile ground for scaling through social commerce.

Business owners have been warned to provide more learning opportunities for employees or risk losing key talent, in a movement labelled ‘the Great Upskill’.

Following months of mass resignations triggered by the Great Resignation, e-learning solutions provider IMC has found that 86% of employees would remain with their current employer for longer if they offered frequent learning and development (L&D) opportunities.

Rising inflation has led to a rapid fall in real wages, which has torpedoed staff morale in many companies. Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures show that job-to-job moves in 2022 reached a record average of 946,000, driven by resignations rather than dismissals.

The IMC research indicates that today’s workers would feel more motivated to stay at a firm with L&D opportunities, providing an impetus for business owners to invest in upskilling.

Skills shortage threatens small business growth in 2023

The IMC survey indicates that one of the best ways to tackle heightened staff turnover is to invest in workplace education programmes for employees.

Pouring more money into L&D might feel like unnecessary spending in today’s economy. In the current hiring landscape, however, it is actually a savvy move from the business owner’s perspective.

Sourcing talent has become an uphill battle for managers. The high volume of working-age people who left full-time employment during COVID has left recruiters with a scant pool of applicants to choose from.

In turn, this has created a lack of in-demand skills, particularly when it comes to tech roles. SMEs are being held back from progressing in fast developing areas, such as the use of AI, instead having to search abroad to find suitable job-ready candidates.

As a result, L&D funding should be thought of as a cost-saving measure, rather than an additional expenditure.

Research by the British Business Bank has shown that the estimated cost to hire somebody on the UK average salary is £3,000. Using half of that amount to expand your existing employees’ knowledge and experience provides an attractive return on investment for the business owner.

Workers more likely to apply to companies with L&D opportunities

IMC’s teachings can also be applied to recruitment. The e-learning provider also found that 92% of job candidates use L&D offerings – which can range from funding for courses or a coaching leadership style – as a deciding factor when comparing two employers.

This figure demonstrates why businesses should consider the whole package they offer staff, not just salary. In such a competitive market, benefits and perks can be the key differentiator for job seekers, not salary.

Dan Hudson, founder of the free job-finding app GiGL recently told Startups that information on company benefits was the most popular section on any GiGL job listing.

Leaving this information out, he said, was one of the biggest mistakes employers make on job adverts. More than a business blunder – it risks turning candidates completely off from your hiring gap, damaging team expansion alongside overall company growth plans.

Employees prioritise soft skills in a remote working world

When asked what kind of L&D courses employees want to be offered, Stephen Adams, founder and director of Inspirational Coaching, reports seeing a spike in the number of requests for soft skills training.

“In particular, the demand for techniques to develop essential skills such as communication, resilience and problem solving have seen a significant upturn,” he says.

Earlier this week, we reported that bosses had overwhelmingly voted Gen Z employees as the ‘most difficult generation to work with’.

65% of managers say they have fired more Gen Zers than employees of any other age. When asked, several blamed the bad communication habits that younger staff members had developed in today’s post-COVID era of virtual team working.

In this context, investing in employee workshops that can improve collaboration skills – alongside communication software that can aid further development – is crucial to reduce conflict in the workplace.

More on this: read our guide to the top collaboration tools for small businesses to help your team work better together online.

Founders Forum Group (FFG) has formally acquired Tech Nation in a bid to continue the startup support network’s mission to empower the UK’s tech sector.

This injects a dose of confidence back into the startups industry, which was left in shock when Tech Nation announced its closure in March after its government funding was pulled.

FFG is a global community of businesses that seeks to support entrepreneurs at every stage of growth and foster an innovative environment akin to Silicon Valley. It’s known for hosting events and forums like London Tech Week.

Tech Nation programmes and reports will be relaunched as part of FFG’s existing portfolio of events and services tailored to entrepreneurs.

Tech Nation’s outgoing founding CEO Gerard Grech and Board Director Sarah Wood will help steer the transition as part of FFG’s Tech Nation Advisory Board.

How did we get here?

TechNation ceased operations on March 31 after the government pulled its funding last September.

Launched in 2011, Tech Nation was financed by the government’s Digital Growth Grant. This was a £12.09 million pot of money used to aid the UK’s existing digital tech firms, enable startups to scale-up, and grow regional support networks.

In a shock announcement, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) reallocated the grant to Eagle Labs, a tech incubator run by Barclays Bank.

In the last decade, Tech Nation has helped shape the trajectory and success of UK tech to be the number one digital economy in Europe and third globally, valued at $1 trillion. The UK is also home to over 20 places that host at least one tech unicorn.

While 80% of startups fail within the first two to five years, over 95% of startups on Tech Nation’s accelerator programs have gone on to scale

Alumni companies include Deliveroo, Monzo, and Revolut.

Keeping the UK’s tech sector global

Perhaps most importantly, FFG will continue to process the Global Talent Visa for the Home Office.

Although this is a temporary measure while a new endorsing body is found, it shows global tech talent is still welcome in the UK.

The Global Talent Visa has been a key ingredient in diversifying representation in the UK tech sector.

Professionals from over 100 nationalities have been given the visa and have built their careers in the UK. As a result, 15% of tech scaleups have at least 1 immigrant founder.

There are currently over 2,500 Global Talent Visa holders working in over 900 UK tech businesses.

What’s next?

With a difficult economic landscape and significant reductions in access to R&D tax credits, the acquisition could help the sector’s ability to access support.

Gerard Grech, Founding CEO and Tech Nation Advisory Board member, concludes, “I am confident FF Group will continue the vital work of Tech Nation, leveraging its influential network to evolve Tech Nation’s existing programmes, foster entrepreneurship nationwide and supercharge scaleups and high-growth businesses across the UK.”

Small businesses have lost out on 680,000 days of trading per month, due to industrial action, according to new data from small business lender iwoca.

Cumulatively, this totals just over four million days of trading lost across six months – around 0.7 days for each of the UK’s 5.6 million SMEs.

Strike action has taken its toll on the day-to-day running of UK businesses. 31% of companies taking part in the analysis reported that strikes have had a negative impact on their business.

On one hand, employees from a range of industries and organisations have now successfully secured pay rises. RMT union members last week accepted a 14% wage increase, putting an end to months of chaos for commuters.

Yet more strikes are on the way over the next few months. This International Worker’s Day, we’re unveiling our 2023 strikes tracker. We’ll record all upcoming protests as and when they are announced, as well as offer a quick explainer of how your business might be impacted.

UK strikes tracker

We’ll be updating the below list with any new strike updates as and when they are announced, to keep SMEs in the loop about how worker action might affect their operations.

Train strikes

Members of the RMT Union (20,000 train managers, caterers and station staff) and ASLEF members of staff who work for 16 train companies will walk out following disputes over pay and working conditions.

June 2023

• Friday 2 June
• Saturday 3 June

May 2023

• Saturday 13 May
• Friday 12 May
• Wednesday 31 May

Any weekday strikes will affect employees commuting to their workplace – particularly around London and the Midlands, where ASLEF companies largely operate.

Small businesses in Liverpool saw the biggest impact from the earlier date, as Eurovision fans’ travel plans to the ‘capital city of pop’ are disrupted.

Teacher strikes

Teachers went on strike as part of National Education Union (NEU) action. Small businesses who employ working parents will need to consider how this might affect their childcare plans. Hybrid office could allow impacted staff members to work from home, for example.

May 2023

• Tuesday 2 May

The NEU executive will next meet on 17 June to decide whether to take further strike action in the week commencing 3 July.

Heathrow Airport strikes

Security officers at Heathrow airport went on strike for eight days in May. Companies that operate abroad, or do business with foreign partners, were most likely to have been impacted.

The action also coincided with the coronation bank holiday weekend, which means SMEs in London could have been affected by a drop in the number of foreign tourists visiting.

May 2023

• Thursday 4 – Saturday 6 May
• Tuesday 9 – Wednesday 10 May
• Thursday 25 – Saturday 27 May

How have strikes impacted UK small businesses?

The UK is currently seeing the most significant wave of staff revolts since the 1980s miners’ strike.

More than two million working days were lost to private and public industrial action in 2022. Staff members across organisations from the Rugby Union to BT Group have united to lobby against real wage pay losses caused by inflation.

30% of the 500 small business owners who were surveyed said the strikes had affected their company negatively. Only 3% said they had been impacted positively.

While most small businesses do not employ striking workers, they rely upon many of the services offered by those taking action. Lots of sellers, for example, use the post office to send their items to buyers.

Accordingly, the most commonly cited business challenge caused by strike action was delays to customer orders. Worker action at major couriers like Amazon has dramatically reduced the number of drivers on the road.

One in five survey respondents told iwoca that their parcels hadn’t arrived at customer doorsteps on time, jeopardising existing customer relationships when most small firms are already experiencing a squeeze on profits.

Outside of deliveries, 18% of business owners said they had adapted work plans to accommodate the strikes. Meanwhile, 1 in 10 reported being unable to get to work, or having to refuse work, as a result of the train strikes.

Business support for strikes remains largely unchanged

While the strikes have had a negative impact on some small businesses, 34% of SME owners in the iwoca survey said they remained onside with striking workers.

SME opinions on strikes have largely been solidified since June 2022. 43% of entrepreneurs said they had not changed their views on strikes in the preceding six months.

Meanwhile, 22% of small businesses have felt more supportive of the ongoing striking workers since summer. Only 32% said their support has fallen.

This could be due to how quickly SMEs have adapted to remote working post-COVID. Tellingly, 66% of business owners said the strikes had not caused any disruption to their operations.

The majority of organisations have adopted a hybrid working policy in the past two years. As a result, many have been able to easily shift their operations to adapt to any disruption caused, waving goodbye to pre-COVID traditions like the daily commute.

Small business owners back future strikes – but call for resolution

As the UK moves into a new FY, companies should be prepared for looming strike action to hit balance sheets. Civil service staff will strike on April 28, which could impede business admin tasks, such as last minute payroll submissions.

For those needing to travel nationally or abroad for work, there are multiple storms brewing.

3,100 National Express bus drivers are undertaking indefinite strike action as of 20 March until an acceptable pay deal is reached. Security workers at Heathrow Airport will also be striking from 31 March.

As some transport, healthcare and teaching unions suspend strike action after accepting new deals, SME owners welcome cooperation between employers and workers to resolve any upcoming protests.

In fact, more than eight in ten SMEs (82%) believe that employers and workers should come to an agreement without the need to strike.

Colin Goldstein, Commercial Director at iwoca, said: “While strikes have impacted industries across the board, we’re now starting to see the ripple effect of sustained industrial action on small businesses.

“If you’re one of the UK’s 5.5 million small businesses, you now have to contend with lost trading days due to strikes as well as the rising cost of doing business, including spiralling energy costs and inflation.”

To ready their business for the inevitable repercussions, we recommend entrepreneurs use our Startups business continuity plan. It will help you to deal with unpredictable events – of which SMEs have had more than their fair share over the past half a decade.

Disparate attitudes towards work are creating conflict between younger workers and their older managers, according to a survey by ResumeBuilder.com.

The findings show that of 1,344 managers and business leaders surveyed, 74% believe Gen Z is more difficult to work with than any other generation.

In some cases, relationships are souring to the point of being cut short. 65% of managers say they have fired more Gen Zers than employees of any other age.

Some may dismiss the criticisms as older people griping about ‘entitled, lazy young people’. But the overwhelming vote of no confidence in Gen Z staff members – who are predicted to make up 27% of the workforce by 2025 – is cause for concern amongst business owners.

Below, we’ll explore the generation gap in more detail, and explain how senior leaders might resolve the conflict.

Gen Z workers disagree with bosses on the ‘new world of work’

Organisational cultures have undergone a huge shake-up since COVID. With the idea of flexible working having firmly taken hold for UK businesses – the government has even made it a day one legal right through the Flexible Working Bill – the line between personal and professional behaviour is blurring for companies up and down the country.

From benefits packages to the office dress code, every workplace has been affected as bosses embrace a more relaxed approach to day-to-day duties.

Most of Gen Z has only ever worked in an environment where pyjamas on a work call wasn’t normal. For this group, the ‘old ways’ of the 9am start time are dead and buried.

Now, ResumeBuilder’s research suggests that managers are struggling to align their expectations with the performance styles of younger colleagues.

Workforce clashes over digital working

Each generation brings new challenges, perspectives, and beliefs with them to a workplace. But ResumeBuilder’s findings suggest the gap between pre and post-COVID workplace attitudes is too wide for teams to bridge, creating real management issues.

Overall, nearly three-quarters of managers and business leaders surveyed say they find Gen Z to be more difficult than other generations to work with. Of this group, 49% find it difficult to work with Gen Z employees all or most of the time.

According to the respondents, Gen Z slack off. Managers argue that younger employees lack effort (37%) and motivation (37%).

Akpan Ukeme, head of HR at SGK Global Shipping Services, admits he has butted heads with Gen Z colleagues on multiple occasions.

“They think they know everything about the digital world,” he protests. “They think they’re better, smarter, and more capable than you. They will tell you that to your face.”

Of the respondents who claim Gen Z is the most difficult generation to work with, 34% say they would prefer to work with Millennials, 30% with Gen X, and 4% with Baby Boomers.

Poor communication skills lead to Gen Z disconnect

We recently reported on the glossary of new office slang that Gen Z employees have brought to the workplace. Amongst the favourites, ‘work goals’, ‘vibe’, and ‘feeling it’.

Some would say it’s all harmless fun. Combined with the ResumeBuilder research, however, this influx of social media-inspired jargon represents a deeper issue. Workers from different generations are finding it increasingly difficult to understand each other.

Adam Garfield is marketing director at Hairbro. Garfield praises Gen Z workers for prioritising meaningful work. But he also says he believes younger colleagues fall down when it comes to communication.

“While they are proficient in using digital communication tools, they may lack some of the interpersonal skills required for face-to-face interactions,” he attests. “Gen Z could benefit from developing their communication skills to build stronger relationships with colleagues and clients.”

All roads lead back to the pandemic. Gen Z staff may have begun connecting with colleagues remotely during lockdowns, with no experience of making and taking traditional work phone calls. It is likely they now collaborate via a hybrid business model, presenting potential for confusion and ambiguity.

According to Lucid’s 2022 State of Collaboration report, 67% of employees prefer to meet in person because they feel virtual meetings aren’t collaborative.

Bad communication is guaranteed to spur team working. In our guide to the importance of teamwork, we highlight the seven key principles of communication – without which, a team can end up directionless and, ultimately, missing its objective.

Experts say training is key to generational conflict resolution

Of the managers who indicated they find Gen Z difficult to work with, 59% say they’ve fired a Gen Zer. This statistic points to the scale of disruption that the issue is causing.

Particularly when companies are finding it so difficult to find talent that they are actively searching abroad, trigger-happy managers handing out notices left and right has genuine ramifications for business growth.

Allowing discontent to fester into firings will also not help with wider employee engagement. Low staff morale – a surefire symptom of workplace conflict – is guaranteed to induce a higher turnover rate, as workers feel they are unable to progress.

Chief Career Advisor Stacie Haller blames COVID-19 for the Gen Z disconnect, arguing that younger colleagues who began their careers during the remote era of the pandemic have not been able to witness good office communication first-hand.

“We know that with remote work and education, communication skills do not develop as well and people tend to work more independently,” she stresses. Haller’s solution? “This generation may need more training when it comes to professional skills.”

How to bridge the generational gap

While flexible working has brought many positives to the workplace, government findings highlight plenty of negatives. Chief amongst them: challenges when monitoring staff performance.

Here are three ways to improve communication between line managers and their reports when working remotely:

1. Organise in-person team-building activities

Team building exercises help to build trust and respect between colleagues. Gen Z employees will learn more about the skills and talents of their managers. This will serve to mitigate conflict, encourage communication, and increase collaboration.

2. Audit your hybrid working policy

Now is a good time to re-examine your hybrid work policy (or design one if you haven’t already) to make sure it is supporting every member of staff.

Crucially, review your current mechanisms for performance evaluation, such as ensuring all line managers have regular catch up meetings with their reports.

3. Invest in management training

It’s easy to blame the new workers, but good communication skills are also an important trait for managers to own. Investing in a management training program will better equip leaders to handle development or performance issues amongst younger employees.

Still struggling to promote harmony in your workplace? Read our guide to conflict resolution for six more strategies you can use to reduce the impact of the generational gap.

Artificial intelligence has become the new entrepreneurial frontier to cross. From ChatGPT to Google’s Bard, a technological race has begun and innovative businesses everywhere are looking to break the latest AI product.

The UK is exceptionally well positioned to lead the AI charge, with a vibrant startups sector that is seizing the new possibilities that artificial intelligence offers.

As the UK government strides ahead to become a world leader in AI, UK startups have already received the memo, with numerous businesses at the forefront of AI innovation. In this article, we highlight the top 25 UK AI startups to keep on your radar.

Top AI Companies in the UK to watch

To understand what the future of AI in the UK will look like, we’ve found the top 20 startups using the emerging technology in the most innovative, useful, and creative ways.They made this list due to their collection of funding successes, unique way of using AI, and overall inspiring business stories.

PolyAI

Founders: Nikola Mrkšić, Tsung-Hsien Wen, Pei-Hao Su
Founded: 2017
Website: poly.ai

The impending pain of having to call customer service is something any customer can relate to. What’s more, with rising call centre costs and the push to divert customer support to online chats, it can be even worse to realise you can’t even make a phone call at all. This is where PolyAI steps in. Its artificial intelligence voice assistants have been designed so smoothly it’s hard to distinguish whether you’re talking to an AI or a human being. Contrary to other AI voice assistants, PolyAI’s technology is reactive rather than predictive, which means the technology actually listens and understands what you’re saying.

PolyAI recently secured $40m in a Series B funding round and is looking to increase its global expansion. Major UK brands including Metro Bank, Greene King, Whitbread and Starling Bank are already entrusting customer support calls to PolyAI’s technology. It also snatched up the seventh spot in the Startups 100 2023 Index.

Infogrid

Founders: William Cowell De Gruchy
Founded: 2018
Website: infogrid.io

If your eyes have watered at the sight of your latest office electricity bill or if you constantly grumble about how cold the air conditioner is, Infogrid offers a smart AI-powered solution. Through AI-controlled automations, Infogrid gets rid of the hassle of fine-tuning the conditions of your office and saves you having to hire external contractors. It aims to make every building healthy, efficient, and sustainable.

Infogrid recently raised $90 million in a Series B funding round and has won countless awards for its technology, including the Corporate Vision Technology Innovator Awards.

Humanising Autonomy

Founders: Maya Pindeus, Leslie Nooteboom and Raunaq Bose
Founded: 2017
Website: humanisingautonomy.com

Humanising Autonomy envisions a world in which AI technology is built around people and has a positive impact on humans and society. Whether it’s a vehicle, traffic control, a smart home device, or any other automated machine, AI helps machines to understand someone’s intentions from their movements or body language without infringing on ethical standards.

Humanising Autonomy’s focus on making AI human-centric has already helped it secure success. It recently raised $11m in a Series A funding round co-led by Beacon Capital LLP and Emellience Partners. To date, it has raised a grand total of $17.2m.

Intelistyle

Founders: Michael Michelis and Kostas Koukoravas
Founded: 2018
Website: intelistyle.com

As everyday as the task might seem, picking an outfit can be a daunting decision. Any ecommerce fashion website will be ripe with options, which, to a shopper, might feel overwhelming. Intelistyle offers a unique AI styling experience, saving you a personal stylist and the headache of visualising your potential outfits in your head.

Intelistyle uses AI to personalise shopping experiences for customers. Its tech is already used by major fashion retailers, including H&M, Tommy Hilfiger and D&G. The startup harnesses information about outfits customers already own to make recommendations on what they should buy next. Impressively, in London Fashion Week 2019, Intelistyle’s AI programming outperformed professional stylists, catching the attention of the likes of Forbes, and our own Startups 100 listings. It has received numerous accolades, including Best AI Product in Fashion in the CogX awards in 2021.

TeamSportz

Founders: Francisco Baptista
Founded: 2019
Website: teamsportz.pro

What if there was a way to improve your athletic skills on demand, regardless of what sport you play? With the TeamSportz app, that is possible. The platform enables clubs to run their teams more efficiently and gain access to elite performance stats with unique AI technology. Its features include the ability to track players’ goals and performance with intuitive dashboards and personalised statistics.

TeamSportz efforts to democratise access to sports technology have already bred success. It secured a paid partnership with London Sports and, to date, the startup has more than 2,000 active players using the platform. It has also raised funding from investors in the UK and the US, including sporting giant Strava’s founder, Mark Gainey.

KYC Hub

Founders: Farnoush Mirmoeini and Jay Rao
Founded: 2017
Website: kychub.com

KYC Hub is boosting business confidence by enabling firms to lower their risk of falling victim of financial fraud through the power of AI. Its technology focuses on reducing processing time when conducting due diligence procedures and enhanced checks on businesses or individuals. Its meticulous design has uncovered hidden risks that other due diligence processes may not. For clients, this results in a 40-80% reduction in operational costs.

KYC Hub’s impressive track record has already led it to being shortlisted for five categories in the RegTech Insights Award, competing against publicly listed companies and multinational corporations with thousands of employees. The company has customers from Singapore to the US, and is planning to empower organisations to prevent financial crime in even more locations.

Sprout.ai

Founders: Raphael Gouth and Niels Thoné
Founded: 2018
Website: sprout.ai

Submitting and processing an insurance claim is stuff that can come straight out of nightmares. Not only is it slow, but it requires navigating a dense sea of documents and unstructured data. This is where Sprout.ai guides the way as the lighthouse that both claimants and insurers were looking for.

Sprout’s AI software has been developed specifically for the insurance industry, and streamlines the entire process from claim to settlement. Processes that would previously take months can now be done in near real-time. Sprout has already been able to bring its cutting-edge technology to insurance giants like Zurich and MetLife, and has raised £8 million in Series A funding.

Genie AI

Founders: Nitish Mutha and Rafie Faruq
Founded: 2017
Website: genieai.co

If you’re not a lawyer (and sometimes, even if you are), it’s likely that the legal world feels complicated, obscure, and difficult to understand. Genie AI is trying to change that. The London-based startup seeks to make legal services available and affordable to everyone by providing open-source access to hundreds of legal business templates.

With Genie’s smart machine learning, anyone can review documents on the platform and proof clauses against thousands of past deals. What’s more, its technology enables firms to customise their documents based on relevant context, like sector, business size, jurisdiction, and contract type. The startup has garnered impressive success, with over 100 organisations signing up to Genie AI every day and experiencing a 30-fold rate of growth in one year with zero marketing spend.

Clever Lili Ltd

Founders: Alex Hak and Petia Hak
Founded: 2019
Website: https://www.gcsehistory.com/

Scouring the internet for GCSE revision materials can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. The task becomes even more difficult for neuro-diverse students who struggle to find means of catching up with their peers. That’s why Clever Lili launched the app, designed to help students with ADD/ADHD, dyslexia and other neurodiverse conditions to approach revision with confidence.

The app is unique thanks to its karaoke function, which highlights text as the AI reads it aloud. The voice can be slowed down, sped up, or even turned off depending on the student’s or teacher’s preference. The AI app has already acquired considerable industry acceptance. In 2021, it became a finalist in the Education Resources Awards 2021. It has also received support from multiple UK exam boards including Edexcel, CIE, and AQA.

Mintago

Founder: Chieu Cao
Founded: 2017
Website: mintago.com

In the midst of a bleak economic winter, users are in need of a platform that can help them better manage their finances. Mintago identified this gap in the market and launched a platform fully focused on financial wellbeing, particularly for better managing pensions. It comes equipped with a whole host of features, including free IFA access, an interactive AI helper, and budgeting tools.

Mintago’s service is unique in that it isn’t biased towards any one pension provider. Employees can contribute to their pension with confidence, and decide whether to keep their pension pots separate or combine them for ease using the Mintago “pension hunter” tool. Employers are guided through the implementation of salary sacrifice pension in a hassle-free way. Mintago claims to have saved over £1 million for businesses and found over £10 million of missing pensions for employees. Recently, it won the Best Personal Budgeting Service Awards in the Fintech Breakthrough Awards.

Jiva.ai

Founders: Dr Manish Patel, Chetan Kaher, and Sarah D’Souza
Founded: 2019
Website: jiva.ai

Although AI is rapidly becoming more normalised, building artificial intelligence products is still a difficult task to tame. Developing an AI or AI-powered service can often be complex and expensive, making smaller businesses feel like adopting the technology is a pipe dream. Jiva.ai, however, is designed to make that pipe dream a reality.

This AI builder platform offers a scalable solution for companies of all sizes, helping entrepreneurs create their own AI function thanks to its approachable tools.

The platform has already found a major footing by offering solutions to the medical research industry. It has established partnerships with GE Healthcare, Roche Diagnostics, plus other NHS and academic institutions in the UK and globally.

Gigged.AI

Founders: Rich Wilson and Craig Short
Founded: 2021
Website: gigged.ai

Finding the right staff and contractors can be an arduous and time-consuming process. Gigged.AI wants to change this, by giving recruitment a true 21st century spin by using AI. The company’s AI-driven marketplace means it’s able to match companies with the most suitable candidates in just ten seconds, automating one of the most time-consuming tasks for managers.

Gigged.AI has also utilised the power of NFTs to design its GigChain platform. This offers freelancers a way to easily and securely verify their identity, work history, certifications and more. Despite its young company age, Gigged.AI already has 200 clients, including the BBC and Leidos and has received over 5,000 freelancer sign ups. Further attesting to its success, it was also awarded £100,000 through the SMART Scotland Grant.

Wayve

Founders: Alex Kendall and Amar Shah
Founded: 2017
Website: wayve.ai

Autonomous vehicles are no longer the stuff of science fiction, and in a market rushing to capitalise on this potential, Wayve is making…well, waves. The self-driving car startup is building end-to-end machine learning algorithms to make cars smarter than ever before. As opposed to “conventional” self-driving cars, Wayve builds a comprehensive data-driven system that doesn’t depend on a certain range of given “if-else” statements. This makes the vehicle safer in unfamiliar situations.

Wayve has secured $200 million in funding and has partnered with Microsoft. More recently, it launched a partnership with Asda to launch the UK’s largest self-driving grocery home delivery trial.

Charm Therapeutics

Founders: Laksh Aithani and David Baker
Founded: 2021
Website: charmtx.com

The pandemic made us painfully aware of how crucial it is to be equipped with the latest cutting edge medical insights, so medical research can respond to new and existing diseases. Charm Therapeutics is an example of how AI technology can cross new medical frontiers. It uses AI 3D deep learning technology to deliver new medicines that can target cancers and other diseases with high unmet medical need.

So far, Charm Therapeutics has raised $50 million in a Series A funding round. It’s also backed by reputable investors like OrbiMed Healthcare Fund management, F Prime and Bristol Myers Squibb.

Mind Foundry

Founders: Stephen Roberts and Michael Osborne
Founded: 2016
Website: mindfoundry.ai

Getting involved with an emerging technology can be a solitary and confusing process. That’s what Mind Foundry wants to change, by helping AI grow in an ethical and transparent way. Mind Foundry develops AI solutions that help people and organisations to implement AI more responsibly, with features that promote knowledge-sharing and meaningful understanding of how the technology works.

The Mind Foundry platform has been used to solve some of the most challenging applications of machine learning and AI, from detecting fraud costing businesses millions of dollars to collaborative intelligence processing. Attesting to its success, the Mind Foundry secured $30m in funding from Aioi Nissay Dowa, Parkwalk Advisors and Oxford Science Enterprises.

Mosaic TX

Founders: Mathew Garnett, Adrian Ibrahim, Emile Voest
Founded: 2020
Website: mosaic-tx.com

Charm Therapeutics is not the only AI startup expanding the frontiers of medical technology. Mosaic TX is using AI to help develop oncology therapeutics, working towards making cancer treatments safer and more effective. Currently, it’s incredibly time consuming and costly to test all potential drug, target and therapeutic hypotheses.

Through machine learning and statistical methods, Mosaic TX wants to make the discovery of new cancer drugs and treatments a quicker process.

Mosaic TX recently closed $28 million in a Series A funding round and is backed by investors like Syncona, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and Innovate UK.

Solvo.ai

Founder: Gaurav Bajaj
Founded: 2021
Website: solvo.ai

When the war in Ukraine started and the cost-of-living crisis exploded, we were reminded of how fragile our supply chains can be. Solvo.ai wants to change that and make them more resilient than before. Using value-driven machine learning, Solvo.ai wants to simplify decision making, accelerate recovery and improve resilience in global supply chains. The idea is to help firms adapt to new conditions and recover from disruptions as quickly as possible.

The London-based AI has already proven to be of interest to investors, having recently raised £3.47 million in a seed round.

Vestico

Founders: Maia Sasania, Maddie Forman, Benedikt Hirmer
Founded: 2020
Website: vestico.co

Shopping for clothes, while exciting, can also be mercilessly frustrating. When you look at the picture of the model, you can never be sure if it will be a match for you. Vestico is trying to streamline that process and give you more confidence as a shopper.

Using AI technology, Vestico aims to be an all-in-content, sizing and personalisation platform for fashion and beauty eCommerce. The idea is to reduce returns and boost customer conversions.

The numbers already speak for themselves. Brands who use Vestico have seen an 11% increase in their conversions and a 17% decrease in returns. It also recently bagged £250k in venture capital investment from Jenson Funding Partners.

Apheris

Founders: Robin Röhm and Michael Höh
Founded: 2019
Website: apheris.com

Hundreds of companies are sitting on mountains of terabytes of data. However, hiking through that terrain without the right tools is tedious and complicated. Apheris offers the right compass to solve that problem. As a federated machine learning and analytics platform, it enables multiple organisations to extract value from each other’s decentralised data sets. This way, companies can overcome regulatory, technical, and commercial challenges, as well as make business decisions grounded in data.

Apheris secured $8.7m in seed funding in a round led by Octopus, LocalGlobe and the ex CFO of Google. It already works with the world’s biggest data owners and major enterprise customers. It has also worked to align quality control systems to reduce carbon emissions in a collaborative data ecosystem along the manufacturing value chain. In short, Apheris is capitalising on the value of sharing data

Edgify

Founders: Ofri Ben-Porat and Nadav Israel
Founded: 2015
Website: edgify.ai

Although self-checkout has become a staple of the retail industry, there’s still a margin of error that could lead to losses. Edgify has developed AI-based technology that can be implemented throughout supermarkets, in any scale or scanning device to help solve this issue. It can even distinguish between similar barcodeless fresh groceries, such as Granny Smith and Pink Lady apples. It then shares the acquired knowledge or model across a collaborative framework of POS machines, helping customers have quicker and faster check-outs.

Although the idea itself is not too complex, it has lots of value. Edgify has secured $6.5m in Seed funding via Octopus Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners and a semiconductor giant. It was also part of the Startups 100 2019 Index.

Workfinder

Founders: Sherry Coutu CBE, Michaela Eschbach, Ketan Goyani, and Alice Müller
Founded: 2019
Website: workfinder.com

Companies value skills more than degrees from colleges or universities, but current HR platforms make it hard for companies to engage in skills-based hiring or career progression. That’s where Workfinder enters the picture. Using AI, it quickly filters employability, data, and business skills underpinning potential employees’ applications. Skillseeker AI is part of Workfinder’s technology which maps seven leading employer-led skills taxonomies to roles, courses, mentors and masterclasses. Its recommendation engine considers between 80 and 2,000 skills factors when conducting a candidate search for clients. With the skills gap currently hurting the labour market, a tool like Workfinder can make a real difference for HR teams.

Workfinders endeavour to help clients upskill, reskill and rebalance their workforce has already garnered success. It has worked with big clients like PayPal, Octopus Energy, and Expedia Group.

Greyparrot

Founders: Mikela Druckman
Founded: 2019
Website: greyparrot.ai

The mantra of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is not enough to prevent massive landfills of wasteland from being a reality. That’s why Greyparrot has wielded the power of artificial intelligence to develop a waste analytics platform for the recycling industry and the circular economy. Through its waste recognition software, Greyparrot monitors and sorts out waste at scale to help boost recycling rates.

Its environmental mission has already garnered success. It won the National Recycling Awards in 2022. It also recently was announced as the latest winner of Amcor’s Lift-Off programme and will receive $500,000 investment and access to Amcor’s sustainability and packaging capabilities.

Conte.ai

Founders: Alex Bogins
Founded: 2020
Website: conte.ai

A car’s autopilot is a great solution to not having to be on edge all the time while you’re driving. Now imagine that, but for managing your social media. Conte.ai has designed a social media autopilot which conducts competitor analysis, prepares a strategy, writes texts, creates graphics and produces four weeks of ready-made posts all with AI. This means you can invest all that time into other more important and critical business tasks. Based on client testimonials and reviews, Conte.ai claims your business can get up to 10 times more social media followers and clients.

Conte.ai is already making big strides in the digital marketing space, having won Best Product for Digital Marketing in the SaaS awards and the Best Product for Digital Marketing at the DotComm Awards. It currently is at the Seed funding stage and has raised $2.4M in funding so far.

Rosa Biotech

Founders: Dr Mark Street-Docherty
Founded: 2019
Website: rosabio.tech

Combining the power of machine learning and protein design, Rosa Biotech wants to enable patients and clinicians to get early diagnoses of a broad spectrum of diseases. Born in the University of Bristol, Rosa Biotech has developed Pandra, an innovative sensing platform that can detect life-threatening disease with high accuracy from patient samples.

Its mission to empower patients with early diagnoses has already inspired trust from investors as Rosa Biotech recently secured £415,000 from angel investors. It also recently was awarded a grant by Innovate UK through its Biomedical Catalyst Feasibility & Primer Award.

Netacea

Founders: Andy Still and Jeremy Gidlow
Founded: 2018
Website: netacea.com

Protecting your business from cyberattacks will always be an item in your list of risks, given how technologically advanced they are increasingly becoming. Netacea is helping that list of risks feel less daunting. The company has created an AI platform that differentiates between bots and real humans through its machine-learning elements to ensure the system is constantly improving its recognition capabilities. Netacea helps to protect APIs, apps and websites for clients, giving a holistic cybersecure offering.

Its innovative bot-spotting solution has earned it the Forrester Wave Strong Performer Award and the Sinet 16 Innovator Award. The cybersecurity startup has successfully raised funding from six investors. These rounds of funding have won Netacea £9 million in startup funding.

Vira Health

Founders: Andrea Berchowitz and Dr Rebecca Love
Founded: 2020
Website: vira.health

Vira Health is all about helping women better manage menopause. Its first product is a subscription-based app called Stella, which offers personalised treatments based on their symptoms. It also provides access to menopause experts, guided meditation, educational materials, exercises, recipes and online classes. It is designed for companies that want to expand their employee benefit schemes so that gender equality and inclusivity in the workplace can become a reality. This is key considering in the UK, 30% of women missed work due to menopause symptoms.

Vira Health is available in the UK, Ireland and US and has raised £1.5m in a funding round in 2022 with investors including LocalGlobe, MMC and Amino Collective.

Nanograb

Founders: Debesh Mandal, Christopher Lau, Shanil Panara
Founded: 2022
Website: https://www.nanograb.com/

Nanograb is a computational drug discovery company that uses AI to generate the best combination of binders to treat different diseases. Thanks to this technology, drugs can be better targeted to specific areas of the body, changing the way we understand disease treatment and diagnoses. The startups is currently developing cancer treatments.

Although it hasn’t undergone any funding rounds, Nanograb is currently taking part in the summer cohort of Y Combinator, a US-based tech startup accelerator.

DeepSearchLabs

Founders: Maryam Torshizi
Founded: 2020
Website: https://www.deepsearchlabs.com/

DeepSearch labs is a deeptech company focused on creating specialised and bespoke intelligent search engines for industry. Rather than throwing away tons of time on Google searching for the right answers, industry experts can now find curated reports and search results relevant to their field. The startup labels, organises and denoises results using AI, helping its clients find the information that matters.

Currently, DeepSearch Labs is currently in a Pre Seed funding round financed by SFC Capital and they’ve raised a total of £127k so far.

Orbital Materials

Founders: Jonathan Godwin, Daniel Miodovnik, and James Gin-Pollock
Founded: 2022
Website: https://orbitalmaterials.com/

Using Generative AI and Large Language Models, Orbital Materials develops novel green materials for clean water, air and energy. The startup has developed a foundational model for atoms that can generate materials that can remove contamination or develop novel fuels. Its latest deal was Early Stage VC and has thus far raised $4.8M thanks to its promising environmental agenda.

Eilla

Founders: Nikolay Babulkov, Petar Petrov and Nikola Lazarov
Founded: 2022
Website: https://eilla.ai/

Eilla is an AI assistant for financial services professionals. The LLMs based startup helps professionals save time by producing ad-hoc documents in seconds and accelerating the due diligence process by distilling insights from extensive legal documents. This technology targets some of the chronic issues that handicap the financial services industry, as well-paid professionals often are bogged down by having to search, read, and summarise long reports rather than moving forward with clients.

Unitary

Founders: Sasha Haco and James Thewlis
Founded: 2019
Website: unitary.ai

The internet is replete with disturbing and harmful content that human moderators simply can’t keep up with. Bringing a new disruptive method to make the world wide web a safer place, Unitary is using machine learning to teach AI to identify harmful content within its context. Its patented technology can analyse around three billing images a day, or 25,000 frames of video per second, catching bad actors who would have otherwise slipped through the net.

Unitary announced a £12.3m in Series A funding in October 2023 and is reportedly pulling in seven figures of annual recurring revenue. As the pace of the internet continues to grow at a vertiginous pace, Unitary’s technology will prove indispensable to make the internet a safer space.

WeWalk

Founders: Kursat Ceylan and Gokhan Mericliler
Founded: 2020
Website: http://www.wewalk.io

There’s 253 million people with vision loss and 50 million of them depend on white canes, guide dogs or another person to get from one place to another. For too long, blind and visually impaired people have depended on legacy methods. WeWalk is opening a new frontier in health tech with a cane that uses artificial intelligence to give visually impaired people more autonomy.

Its promises to be disruptive given it already was selected as Amazon’s Startup of the Year and was named a TIME Best Invention. It also has secured £2m in angel investment backed by Manchester City and NESTA, the Social Impact Fund in the UK.

MagicAI

Founders: Varun Bhanot and Sunil Jindal
Founded: 2022
Website: magic.fit

Mirror mirror, on the wall, who’s the fittest of them all? With an AI-powered personal trainer living in your looking glass, you’ll soon be told if the answer is you or not. Magic AI is transforming the way we think about fitness, making it less intimidating to start getting into shape from the comfort of your home. The AI technology allows the mirror’s intelligent hologram to analyse movements in real-time and provide hyper-personalised feedback.

Despite its young age as a startup, MagicAI has already raised £2m from two venture capital funds and secured investments from prominent figures in companies like Spotify, Stripe, Tough Mudder and Virgin.

IRIS Audio

Founders: Jacobi Anstruther
Founded: 2019
Website: iris.audio

Using cutting edge AI technology to eliminate background buzz, IRIS Audio is working to guarantee crystal clear sound in any industry. Using patented algorithms, IRIS makes it easier for sales teams, extreme sporting environments, and emergency services to communicate on both ends of a call.

Last year, IRIS raised £5.6m in a Series A funding round and is planning to roll out its flagship product, IRIS Clarity, to a wider US audience. As it continues to grow and help us all hear better, IRIS will be another example of the power of AI for good.

HACE

Founders: Eleanor Harry
Founded: 2020
Website: www.thisishace.com

160 million children worldwide are currently still trapped in a cycle of exploitation, a number that has increased by 8 million since 2016. Child labour can be found in nearly every industry and country, posing not only a moral dilemma but also a substantial reputational and financial risk to companies and investors alike. With its AI-powered Child Labour Index, HACE is giving companies a compass to avoid contributing to this social issue.

By giving businesses a quantifiable metric of how contributive their investments are to child exploitation, they can find better ways of fighting against child labour and promoting ethical supply chains.

My SMASH Media

Founders: Fiona Gillies, Christine Hartland, Mahesh Ramachandra
Founded: 2018
Website: https://www.mysmash.media/

The golden age of streaming is gradually drawing to a close, and the pressure to fill the content pipeline with hits has never been more intense. Content creation is both time-consuming and expensive, leaving the industry in search of innovative solutions to discover the hidden gems that today’s audiences crave. The challenge is pitching these projects in formats that can easily sway decision-makers.

Their Pitch Builder powered by AI makes it easy for users to protect their pitch and transform new talent into savvy content creators. It currently boasts nearly 2,000 users with a significant 75% based in the UK and 12% in the US.

AthenaAI

Founders: Askar Bulegenov, Artem Shitov
Founded: 2023
Website: https://athenachat.ai/

Athena AI has developed an all-in-one messenger system for businesses, powered by built-in AI capabilities that can answer customer queries, on the spot. The tech allows businesses to automate their customer support – whether the communication comes in by email, WhatsApp, text or various social media channels.

Although it’s in its infancy, Athena AI envisions itself as the preeminent customer support and sales technology company, driving innovation across industries.

AI Trends among UK startups

AI is on the road to become the newest normalised technology at our reach. These are a couple of trends to be aware of to know where the future of AI lies.

• AI in medicine: as shown by Mosaic TX and Charm Therapeutics, AI is on a mission to expand the limits of medical technology by making it easier and quicker to find new treatments. On top of this, AI is also boosting the precision of medicine by optimising electronic health records and enhancing diagnostics. This is helping medical professionals to better customise treatment plans and give patients more reassurance.
• Creative and generative AI: generative AI refers to the sub-field in machine learning where new data or content is made using an existing data set. In more simple terms, just think about technologies like text-to-image or text-to-3D model, or most notably, ChatGPT. What we might see as AI develops is smarter and more accurate generative technologies that will continue to blur the lines between computer and human generated code, text, images, audio, video and art.
• AI in personalisation: whether this is helping you pick the right outfit on an ecommerce page or helping you curate the right legal documents based on your industry and company size, AI will continue to enhance personalisation.
• Democratisation in AI: in the future, AI will not be just at the reach of scientists and engineers. As the technology becomes increasingly more embedded in our day to day, we’ll see more initiatives like Stability AI that will add to the low-code or no-code trend in AI. Therefore, we’ll see AI integrating more quickly and efficiently into workplaces.

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