Family Business Scale-ups: Breaking Barriers to Growth
The challenges to growing and scaling family businesses
Figure 27: Workforce skills gaps and recruitment challenges When working with schools and colleges, scaleups want more employer encounters with students and entrepreneurial and leadership education
42%
More 'employer encounters' with students
38%
Entrepreneurial education modules
37%
Better understanding within careers advice
Vocational courses
35%
These issues and needs are further reinforced in FBUK’s Policy Agenda 16 for family businesses – 58% of which were mid-market – highlighting the need for stronger connections with young people in schools and colleges, a greater emphasis on technical and vocational skills and digital technologies, and more support with succession planning. Enhanced maths curriculum, incl. how it relates to modern technologies Clearer accreditation of digital skills for young people Education on business funding, investment and capital
34%
33%
31%
facilities (32%). There is also interest in clearer points of contact within universities (28%), universities acting as anchors for investor and corporate collaboration (27%), and regular briefings on relevant university activity (26%). Five in ten mid- market and scaling family-business leaders say they would be willing to pay to access university support if it met their talent and growth needs.
Businesses also see universities as an important partner in supporting scale-up and using the services and skills they can offer to enhance their leadership teams and R&D activities. Specific areas of demand include postgraduate students for targeted research projects (39%), online platforms to engage with collaborative research (33%), and dedicated research grant funding or innovation
16 https://familybusinessuk.org/family-first-approach-in-new-fbuk-policy-agenda/ At the end of January 2026, Family Business UK surveyed more than 550 family firms of which 323 were in the mid-market.
Page 53
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online