British businesses started 2024 with their confidence at the highest level in nearly two years, boosted by cooling inflation and hopes for interest rate cuts, according to a survey published on Wednesday.
The Lloyds Bank Business Barometer jumped by nine percentage points to 44% this month, its strongest since February 2022.
Hann-Ju Ho, senior economist Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said weaker inflation and hopes of interest rate cuts pushed the index to its highest level for the month of January since 2016.
"With ongoing geopolitical issues and a general election on the horizon, businesses will have factored these into their risk radars and will be working to prepare for any potential impacts on their trading prospects," he said.
"Also, half of all companies say they’re planning to increase headcount in the coming year. Despite that and the changes to minimum wage that will come into force in April, expectations for staff pay fell back following last month’s increase."
Companies also scaled back plans for increasing the prices they charge for a second month in a row, the first back-to-back decrease since June 2022, Lloyds said.