Business News Round Up (05/02/2024)
UK businesses face elevated financial distress amidst European challenges
UK companies find themselves grappling with the second-highest levels of financial distress, as revealed by the Weil European Distress Index. German firms lead the distress index, reflecting the broader challenges faced by businesses across the continent. The primary driver for financial distress in the UK is dwindling profitability, echoing a trend observed throughout Europe. A delicate balance between rising expenses and the imperative for sustained production has left businesses struggling to navigate the current economic climate. In response to these challenges, many companies in the UK are contemplating price reductions as a strategic move to maintain sales volumes. The business sectors facing the most acute distress are real estate and healthcare. The real estate sector is identified as the “most distressed” in the index, contending with high interest rates, declining property valuations, increased energy and construction costs, and rising financing expenses.
‘Significant drop’ in value and volume of alleged fraud in Scotland
Scotland saw a significant drop in terms of the value and volume of alleged fraud against the general public. In 2022, there were 11 cases to the value of £10.3m, while in 2023, there were just five cases to the value of slightly over £1m. Yet, a recent Scottish Police Authority report revealed a 68% increase in fraud cases in Scotland over the last five years. KPMG UK’s Fraud Barometer, which records alleged fraud cases with a value of £100,000 and above, shows the number of reported fraud cases outside of the London region rose to 183 cases in 2023, up from 172 in 2022. In terms of reported fraud values of £100,000 and above, outside of the London region, this decreased by 47% to £291.5m in 2023, down from almost £552m in 2022.
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/significant-drop-value-volume-alleged-32047876
UK tech not easy to break into, despite talent shortage
Tech industry proves to be a challenge for aspiring professionals, according to a recent study. The revelation comes from a study conducted by StandOut, which surveyed 17,815 entry-level job advertisements across the UK to shed light on some of the barriers faced by job seekers aiming to enter the tech sector. The findings reveal that just over half (52%) of the ‘entry-level’ tech positions demand prior professional experience. In addition, the sector has a large international pool jockeying for positions, meaning landing an entry level job in the sector without prior experience is becoming an increasingly difficult feat. The researchers found that IT technicians and junior software engineers stand atop the list of roles most likely to require prior experience, with figures at 62.8% and 60% respectively. The analysis found that, despite the barriers to entry, IT technicians are offered entry-level salaries significantly below the UK average.
https://www.digit.fyi/uk-tech-not-easy-to-break-into-despite-talent-shortage/
Scottish local authorities to benefit from £7m shared cybersecurity operations centre
Scottish local authorities are set to benefit from a £7 million cybersecurity operations centre solution – including a detection response service. Procurement body Scotland Excel is seeking a partner ‘who can help implement and monitor a managed security operations centre solution and respond to security events as they arise. The solution will be a ‘common platform to provide visibility of security events from multiple sources in both the cloud and on-premises environment of the contracting local authority’. According to a prior information notice on the Public Contracts Scotland website, the service will also provide a 24/7 365-days-a-year monitoring of the platform and will take ‘agreed upon delegated actions within agreed SLAs based on the categorisation of the security event’. The solution is expected to be based on Microsoft365 technologies that allow source log files to be held within the Local Authority. It will be available to all local authorities in Scotland.