Their experiences are shaping a countywide effort led by Buckinghamshire Business First (BBF) to understand the real issues affecting day-to-day business productivity, and to make sure those insights reach the people who can influence policy to enable positive change.

Over the past three months, BBF has spoken directly with hundreds of businesses through roundtables, sector groups, surveys, one-to-one conversations, and major networking events. These discussions have helped us build a clear picture of the challenges local firms are facing, and what needs to change to help them succeed.

We’re not simply gathering insight — we’re taking these messages straight into conversations with local and national decisionmakers. 

What Businesses Are Telling Us

Several strong and recurring themes are emerging across all sectors:

Infrastructure & Utilities

Businesses continue to face delays, disruption and added costs due to road quality, transport reliability, and a limited supply of suitable premises. In some cases, energy and water supply constraints are preventing firms from expanding or upgrading their operations. 

Skills & Recruitment

Employers are struggling to find the skilled people they need — from engineers and technicians to digital specialists and experienced managers. Retaining staff is also becoming harder, often linked to rising living and housing costs.

Policy & Regulation

Increasing regulatory and compliance requirements continue to place additional cost and administrative burdens on businesses, especially in smaller firms with limited internal resources. Rising employment-related costs, such as employer National Insurance Contributions, also limit incentives for businesses to recruit, particularly young people entering the labour market.  

Adopting Technology Effectively

Interest in AI and automation is high, but many businesses are unsure where to start. They want practical guidance on identifying the right processes to automate, and support to help staff gain confidence and competence working with new digital tools.

Access to Finance & Support

Although support exists, businesses often find it difficult to navigate or are unaware of what’s available. Many prefer peer-to-peer learning and sector-specific guidance that feels directly relevant to their work.  

Procurement Barriers

Businesses consistently highlight the need for a fairer chance to compete for contracts with the public sector and large organisations. Complex processes, limited visibility of opportunities, and systems that unintentionally favour larger or incumbent suppliers mean SMEs often struggle to take part — despite having strong capabilities and competitive offers.

Economic & Market Pressures

Competition for talent, supply chain issues, rising operating costs and more cautious customer demand continue to affect business confidence and performance. As a result, businesses have weaker motivation to take risks and invest in new labour and capital to enhance their productivity.

Why This Work Matters

Buckinghamshire is full of ambitious, innovative businesses that want to grow — but too many are being held back by challenges outside their control. Our role at BBF is to ensure those challenges aren’t overlooked.

By gathering insight directly from the business community and taking it into discussions with MPs, government departments, Buckinghamshire Council and national partners, we make sure real experiences inform future policy, funding decisions and local investment. 

These insights also shape the support we develop with partners across skills, education, infrastructure, finance and innovation. 

Help Us Build a Stronger Evidence Base

The more perspectives we gather, the stronger our advocacy becomes — and the better equipped we are to push for meaningful change. 

If your business is experiencing challenges that affect your productivity — whether related to skills, digital tools, regulation, finance, procurement, infrastructure or anything else — we want to hear from you. Share your experience by emailing [email protected].

Have Your Say Now on Business Rates

To ensure the voice of Buckinghamshire businesses is clearly heard in the corridors of power, we are gathering views on the proposed changes to business rates in order to feedback to a government consultation. We’d appreciate if you could take our quick poll (less than 2 minutes) to explain the real-world impact of these changes.