Chamber Quarterly Business Report Q1 2025

Your Voice Helps Shape the Region’s Business Future.

Every quarter, the West Cheshire & North Wales Chamber of Commerce invites businesses across the region to share their insights into its Quarterly Business Report (QBR) – a vital barometer of business confidence and performance.

This isn’t just another survey. The QBR feeds directly into the British Chambers of Commerce and informs government policy at the highest levels. Your responses help paint a real-time picture of the local economy, influencing decisions that impact interest rates, business support, and investment. By taking part each quarter, you’re giving the region a stronger voice –highlighting the challenges you face and the opportunities ahead. Whether it’s rising costs, recruitment struggles, or market optimism, your feedback helps drive the agenda for change. Below, you can see how your responses have helped give us insights into our local economy in our Quarterly Business Report for the first quarter of 2025.

Background

Responses: 91

Employees represented: 19,000

Sector split: 21% Manufacturing, 79% Services

Fieldwork period: 10th February6th March 2025

Findings

• Business confidence recovered to levels prior to the Autumn Budget announcement.

• Cashflow concerns remain with only 28% of businesses reporting an increase during the last quarter.

• Domestic and overseas sales and orders remain flat.

• The number of businesses looking to recruit in the 3 months prior to the survey fell to the lowest point since Q1’21 (47%).

• 83% of businesses that did try to recruit faced difficulties.

• Investment intentions recovered after a four-year low but remain historically subdued.

• Inflation remains the top external concern for businesses.

• Labour costs continue to be the biggest pressure on prices cited by 64% of respondents.

Business Sentiment

“Business confidence is fairly low and the extra tax burdens and new employee regulations placed on SME's are hindering any confidence.”

“We are quietly positive about how the next year will look and are expecting to grow our service and business offering.”

“Forthcoming National insurance increase is disastrous for any company employing unskilled or low-skilled staff.”

Final Thoughts

“Despite ongoing concerns from businesses, recent policy announcements, notably national insurance increases, this quarter’s QBR shows some positive signs for our region with confidence and investment intentions showing signs of recovery.

“It remains a challenging time for businesses with the domestic side seeing, tax rises, specifically the NICs increase which are consistently cited by businesses as a concern. A global tariff war is also a major blow for both importers and exporters, although tensions have eased since this survey took place.”

“Inflation remains the key concern for firms in our region and with costs mounting up, this could push up prices and further limit interest rate cuts.

“To help business we need to see quick action in three specific areas. Firstly, ministers should accelerate business rate reform to create a system that incentivises investment.

“We also need the Government to speed up infrastructure investment, to help SMEs in supply chains across the country. Finally, it’s crucial to support exports, especially in a world where new and changing tariffs are adding an extra layer of complexity.”

Sarah Bailey, CEO, West Cheshire & North Wales Chamber of Commerce