Prime Minister unveils £29.5bn of investment at historic Global Investment Summit

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has today (Monday 27 November) unveiled £29.5 billion of new investment for thriving UK sectors, as the world’s A-list CEOs and investors arrive at the Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court Palace. 

Backing some of the fastest growing and most innovative sectors in the UK, the transformative investments have been secured for projects in tech, life sciences, infrastructure, housing and renewable energy – creating thousands of new jobs and driving growth across the country. 

The summit marks a huge step forward for levelling up, with more than 12,000 jobs being created from just some of today’s investments. This follows the government’s new £4.5 billion Advanced Manufacturing Plan, a £2 billion investment from Nissan which will secure thousands of jobs in Sunderland, and a new Investment Zone in the North East which will create 4,000 jobs.

Nearly 26,000 jobs were created last year alone in the North West and North East from inward investment projects, with over 7,000 in Yorkshire and The Humber and 11,000 in the Midlands.

The summit will be opened by the Prime Minister and Business & Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, with notable CEOs in attendance including Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone, Amanda Blanc at Aviva, David Soloman from Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase. 

Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds Bank will also attend as Principal Partners of the Summit, which will celebrate “British Ideas – Past, Present and Future”, from the steam train to quantum computing. It will be followed by a reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by His Majesty the King.

The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: 

Today’s investments, worth more than £29 billion, will create thousands of new jobs and are a huge vote of confidence in the future of the UK economy. Global CEOs are right to back Britain – we are making this the best place in the world to invest and do business. 

From giving businesses the biggest tax cut in recent history last week, to our culture of innovation and thriving universities producing some of the finest minds in the world, ours is truly a nation of opportunity.

Attracting global investment is at the heart of my plan for growing the economy. With new funding pouring into key industries like clean energy, life sciences and advanced technology, inward investment is creating high-quality new jobs and driving growth right across the country.

The new wave of investments come after the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled the biggest business tax cut in modern history at last week’s Autumn Statement with a permanent extension of capital allowances, £4.3 billion of business rates support and a £7 billion Growth Fund. 

It was also confirmed that Freeport tax reliefs would be extended from five to 10 years, with new government data confirming that UK freeports have attracted nearly £2.9 billion of investment in just two years, creating 6,000 jobs. 

In a huge boost for Net Zero and the UK’s world-leading renewables sector, Iberdrola have confirmed £7 billion of investment as part of a total £12 billion programme for 2024-28, with North Star, owned by Partners Group in Switzerland, also committing £500 million and 400 new jobs to offshore wind infrastructure.

Fellow portfolio company Gren has also recently acquired a network of waste and biomass assets, which play a key role in baseload energy production and reducing waste to landfill. The company plans to invest up to £1 billion in district heating and local energy systems that will deliver affordable green energy to over 200,000 homes and thousands of businesses in the UK, with sites among others in Wick, Sheffield and Nottingham. The lucrative projects come on the back of a huge spike in inward investment for renewables in the UK, rising from £19 billion in 2021 to £55 billion in 2022, with 11,500 jobs being created in the industry last year alone. 

Business & Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said: 

The £29.5 billion pledged today is yet another huge vote of confidence in our dynamic, pro-business and highly innovative economy and proves that our plan for growth is working. 

The numbers speak for themselves: we have the third highest levels of inward investment in the world at $2.7 trillion, we’re number one in Europe for new investment projects, and last year alone we created 107,000 jobs through inward investment.   

People want to invest in a country with vision, ideas and growth, and our Summit showcases all these qualities and proves why the UK is the most exciting and innovative place in the world to invest.

Australia’s IFM Investors also intend to invest £10 billion over the next four years for large-scale infrastructure and energy transition projects. 

IFM will sign an MoU with the Department for Business & Trade at the summit to identify commercially viable opportunities, with potential projects including Nala Renewables, a UK-based portfolio company within IFM, which is actively seeking investment opportunities in the UK as it looks to achieve a renewable capacity target of 4GW by 2025. 

David Neal, CEO of IFM Investors said: 

Australia’s ‘super funds’ system can be a trusted long-term partner with the United Kingdom. We’re proud to sign this Memorandum of Understanding with the UK Government, which is a signal of the confidence IFM and Australian super funds have in the UK as a place to invest. 

Our presence in the UK continues to grow and we look forward to working closely with the Government to drive investment into large-scale infrastructure and energy transition projects across equity and debt funding. 

Partnerships between governments and long-term investors are necessary to unlock the potential of pension funds to invest in system-level risks such as climate change.

And in a further boost from Australia, Aware Super have committed more than £5 billion for projects in energy transition, affordable housing, life sciences, innovation, technology and digital infrastructure, just days after opening their new UK office. 

Aware Super Chief Executive Officer Deanne Stewart said: 

We are thrilled to announce our commitment to the UK, one of the world’s most important and vibrant capital markets, with the opening of our first international office. 

The benefits arising from the Australia – UK Free Trade Agreement, the ease of doing business in the UK, closely aligned culture, proximity to Europe and Northern America, and warm support from both the Department for Business & Trade and the City of London were also compelling factors in our decision to invest here.

The summit will also see billions for the UK’s burgeoning tech sector, which already attracts the highest levels of investment in Europe and last year became the third in the world to be worth $1 trillion. 

Following the success of the UK Government’s first-ever AI safety summit, Microsoft has pledged £2.5 billion to build critical AI infrastructure, bringing more next-generation AI datacentres and thousands of graphic processing units to the UK. This will boost the UK’s AI Superpower status, which generated over £10 billion of revenue from AI companies last year. 

The UK’s R&D scene will also see a £1 billion investment from the Ellison Institute of Technology into their recently announced Oxford Campus, bringing together global innovative thinkers through a new interdisciplinary research and development facility to help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), which is showcasing at the GIS, has also announced it is raising $106 million (£85 million) for R&D projects. Quantum computing is a rapidly growing sector that has the most start-ups in Europe, and is destined for £2.5 billion of public and private investment under the Government’s National Quantum Strategy. 

Ilana Wisby, CEO of Oxford Quantum Circuits, said: 

To solve the world’s most pressing challenges – from climate change to accelerated drug discovery – we need to put quantum computers in the hands of humanity and at the fingertips of our most brilliant minds. 

We’re proud to be pioneering enterprise ready quantum with our customers, partners and investors.

And BioNTech, an international leader in the biotechnology industry and developer of the first mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine, has announced it intends to expand its global R&D activities with a new laboratory in Cambridge as well as a centre of expertise for Artificial Intelligence in London. 

This will be implemented through a rolling 10-year investment of approximately £1 billion, creating an additional 400 highly skilled jobs. It follows a major agreement between the Government and BioNTech SE this summer to provide up to 10,000 patients with precision cancer immunotherapies by 2030. 

Sean Marett, Chief Business Officer & Chief Commercial Officer at BioNTech SE, said: 

BioNTech and the UK Government share a common goal – to improve the life of people by advancing healthcare.

Today’s news underlines that both BioNTech and the UK Government care about improving the outcomes for patients in the upcoming years as well as for generations to come.

A £1 billion investment from Dutch company Yondr will also turbocharge the UK’s tech and data capabilities, with a new 30MW datacentre in Slough that will create over 3,500 jobs, and clean energy-tech company Aira will also spur levelling up across the country by investing £300 million into heat pump rollouts, new jobs and upskilling.  

The investment will support their goal of helping one million UK customers switch from gas boilers to heat pumps, create 8,000 green jobs and expand their Aira Academies to train and upskill plumbers and electricians for product installation. 

Martin Lewerth, Aira Group CEO, said: 

The UK is a crucial market to decarbonise, being one of Europe’s most populated countries and with the lowest heat pump penetration rate of just 1%. 

We are excited to introduce Aira’s innovative home energy solution in the UK, and we are confident that our offering and value proposition, which includes substantial consumer cost savings, no need for lifestyle changes, and a zero upfront payment model, will be well-received.

Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho said:  

The UK is a world-leader in renewable energy and green industries. We have attracted £200bn in low carbon investment since 2010, with another £100bn expected by 2030, as we lead the second industrial revolution. 

Aira’s £300m investment in the UK heat pump industry and creation of 8,000 jobs is a helpful contribution to our green ambitions, offering a cleaner heat source for our homes and growing the economy. 

Families will benefit from lower heat pump prices with more trained installers and £7,500 grants through one of the most generous schemes in Europe.” 

 
And in a further boost for communities, PATRIZIA have announced £100 million for the development of highly sustainable affordable and social housing in England to increase supply of quality housing at affordable prices around London and the south east of England.

The programme has commenced with an investment to fund the development of 70 affordable homes in Milton Keynes. 

Wolfgang Egger, Founder of PATRIZIA, said: 

As a global real assets investor, PATRIZIA is thrilled to announce plans to invest £100 million into the development of highly sustainable, affordable housing in England. 

The programme will help address the acute shortage of good quality, affordable, EPC A rated family housing for renters, and provide additional investment in social infrastructure. The investment strategy is a joint venture between PATRIZIA’s dedicated impact fund, PATRIZIA Sustainable Communities, and Man Group’s UK Community Housing business.  

In a move to spur even more innovation and investment, the Government is also announcing the creation of three new regulatory sandboxes for hydrogen-powered aviation, autonomous marine vessels and drones, with Innovate UK launching a £110 million Investor Partnership for UK science and tech SMEs. 

The Department for Business & Trade have also convened an expert panel chaired by Professor Vanessa Knapp to explore options for a UK corporate re-domiciliation regime to make it easier for foreign companies to relocate to the UK.