In its business-to-business (B2B) sentiment tracker, YouGov said that businesses had an overall confidence score of 43.5 for economic outlook, with any score below 50 indicating a negative outlook.

Larger businesses had a confidence score of 52.9, but small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) rated their confidence at an overall 37.4.

Industry outlook was rated at 66.6, falling to 59.8 among SMEs but hitting 77 among large business of more than 250 employees.

For individual business outlook, YouGov said the overall score was at 71, with 64.7 among SMEs and 80.7 for larger businesses.

IT and telecommunications companies reported the highest economic outlook scores at 83.2 and the highest levels of positivity around their individual business outlook with 105.9.

However, legal firms are more pessimistic about both the economy ( 34.5 ) and their own fortunes ( 62.2 ), as are businesses in the hospitality and leisure sector, with an economic outlook of 33.9 and individual outlook of 62.6. 

Companies were also asked about the most pressing concerns they were facing, with more than half ( 56%) citing costs and interest rates, followed by achieving financial growth ( 53%) and the UK’s regulatory environment and government policy ( 46%).

Domestic demand for products and services ( 38%), inflation and input costs ( 38%), and consumer confidence and spending ( 35%) were the factors that were expected to most affect outlook for the year ahead, YouGov said.

The results are from YouGov’s first B2B sentiment tracker, which surveyed 2,085 business decision makers between 1^st January and 31^st March 2026.