November WorkerTech Round-Up

This month was bookended by the publication of the Keep Britain Working Review’s final report and the much-awaited (and heavily trailed) Budget. For those in the world of Workertech, there were outtakes from both these announcements, which we discuss below.

A big thanks to our colleagues in the Resolution Foundation who crunched the numbers and cranked out the charts overnight to help us understand the measures and announcements from the Chancellor on Wednesday. You can read their excellent analysis here: Stairway to headroom – Putting the Autumn Budget 2025 decisions on tax, spending and borrowing into context.

There are also some exciting funding opportunities at the end of this newsletter, including the launch of Ufi VocTech’s Grants Programme!

Until next month,
Aish

Keep Britain Working Review: A ‘how to’ for the WorkerTech sector

The final report for the Keep Britain Working Review was published earlier this month, the culmination of a 10-month review led by Sir Charlie Mayfield. While the review was jointly commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business and Trade, it was produced independently, and focused on what was needed to keep people living with disabilities or health issues in work.

The Review establishes a few things as context:

Over 1 in 5 working-age people are now out of work and not looking for work; since 2019, the number of people out of work due to health problems has increased by 800,000;

• • The state faces costs equaling £212 billion from economic inactivity due to ill health;
  • Mental ill-health among young people is rising sharply
  • Older workers are leaving employment too early
  • Disabled people remain locked out of work at twice the rate of non-disabled people

The path out of this situation, according to the Review, was a fundamental shift to a model in which health at work is seen as a shared responsibility among individuals, their employers, and health services.

The government has said that more than 60 employers across the UK – including the British Beer & Pub Association, Burger King and John Lewis – have expressed interest in becoming ‘Vanguard Employers’; employers who will lead the development of new approaches to how chronic health issues and disabilities are managed in the workplace.

All of the above points towards a moment in time when government policy, public (health) services, employers and individuals are being urged to interact to solve the issue of economic inactivity due to ill health. For WorkerTech investors and founders, this is a great time to be building impact solutions in the space.

The big levers that we think could create demand for WorkerTech innovation here are:

• • • Stronger integration of work, health and skills, with an increased emphasis on the inclusion of employers’ role in making the transition between ill health and returning to work easier
    • A new digital Jobs and Careers Service overhauling jobcentres that will see the employment services system become more open to improvements through technology
    • Greater attention to the drivers of economic inactivity as the system expands to reach more people, and the surfacing of data and insights that could point to problems needing solving

 Autumn Budget: Resolution Foundation’s Analysis

Fresh off the press is the Resolution Foundation’s analysis of the much-anticipated Autumn Budget, set out by the Chancellor on Wednesday afternoon. Our analysis finds that it largely defied the gloomy forecasts that preceded it, and the economic outlook remains challenging with high borrowing and persistent inflation; the Budget appears to be addressing three major hurdles: repairing public finances, easing the cost-of-living squeeze, and implementing smarter taxation.

Our analysis concludes that while the Budget provides immediate relief to families and shores up public finances, its long-term success hinges on political will to implement backloaded tax rises and maintain fiscal discipline. The outlook for living standards remains uncertain, with real household disposable income projected to grow at a historically slow rate over this Parliament. You can read the Resolution Foundation’s overnight analysis in full here: Stairway to headroom – Putting the Autumn Budget 2025 decisions…into context.

The budget also trailed several announcements focused on entrepreneurship and growth, announcing measures to support startups and scaleups in the UK. Here are a few highlights:

• Continued support for tax reliefs such as SEIS and EIS
• Record R&D budget rising to £22.6 billion annually by 2029/30

• Addressing challenges in scale-up funding through increased public finance support.

• Reforms to listing rules and the introduction of UK Listing Relief to attract IPOs.

• Addressing challenges in scale-up funding through increased public finance support, such as the expansion of the British Business Bank’s capacity to £25.6 billion for scale-ups

You can read more about the Chancellors plans for boosting entrepreneurship in the UK in this policy paper: Entrepreneurship in the UK.

More from the Resolution Foundation

Child Poverty Spotlight: No Half Measures
One of the biggest announcements from the Budget was the lifting of the 2-child benefit cap. Our welfare Spotlight from earlier this month assessed the impact of such a measure and what more can be done to put child poverty on a downward path over this Parliament.

Even after recent measures, including over-indexation of the Universal Credit standard allowance and extending free school meals to all children in UC families in England, child poverty is projected to rise from 31% to 34% (4.8 million children living in poverty) by 2029–30, the highest rate since the early 1960s.

Our analysis shows that no partial reform of the two-child limit would be enough to stop child poverty rising above today’s level. To achieve a more substantial and durable reduction, our economists argue that repealing the two-child limit should be combined with lifting the benefit cap, and permanently linking Local Housing Allowance to local rents, which together could reduce child poverty to around 29.5% by 2029-30 (around 660,000 fewer children in poverty). Long-term, the Spotlight highlights the need to uprate working-age benefits with earnings rather than prices to prevent rates drifting back up.

It’s personal (taxation)
In this Spotlight, we looked at past headline tax rises to examine how work is being taxed. And while it is important to note that some of the figures in the report will now be out of date, considering the Budget, this report may help put some of the changes into context.

Overall taxes are set to reach over 37% of GDP this Parliament, up from 33% in 2019-20, mainly to fund higher interest costs. But for a typical full-time employee, the UK still has the lowest tax wedge in the G7. It is likely to remain below the OECD average even after the recent rise in employer National Insurance.

For a median employee, the effective tax rate in 2025 is around 27%, higher than in most of the 2010s but still below pre-financial crisis levels. The more important shift is composition: employer NI is now a record share of the overall tax wedge. Resolution estimates that the effective tax rate on a typical employee is now 27%, compared with 17% for a self-employed worker on an equivalent output. That means employees pay around 55% more tax, and the self-employment tax break now costs around £9 billion a year and is on course to exceed £10 billion without reform.

Get involved

Impact Shakers Accelerator Programme
Impact Shakers Ventures is now accepting applications for their Impact Shakers Accelerator – a 6-month accelerator programme for underrepresented founders in Europe to scale their impact startup. The programme comes with £250k in support and funding, with masterclasses, coaching and impact expertise. Apply through this link: Impact Shakers Accelerator.
Ufi VocTech Activate grant fund 

Ufi VocTech Trust will open applications for their VocTech Activate. If you’ve got a bold idea for how tech could transform vocational learning, this could be the time to bring it to life. Grants of £30k-£60k are available for projects lasting between 3-12 months.Try the online eligibility checker, then book a pre-application workshop: www.ufi.co.uk/activate.

Applications open on 6 January and close on 3 February 2026.

Bethnal Green Ventures Spring Programme
Our friends at BGV are now accepting applications for their leading Tech for Good accelerator programme for early-stage startups. Their offering includes investment, 1:1 support and intensive mentoring from subject-matter experts within a cohort setting with brilliant mission-driven founders.

You can learn more and apply here.

Apply for direct investment from Resolution Ventures 
We accept applications from WorkerTech ventures on a rolling basis. You can book a slot in our office hours for an initial conversation.