The Engineer's 2025 Business Confidence survey shows sector feeling broadly positive despite challenges

In previous years, The Engineer’s annual Business Confidence survey has often opened with a hopeful prediction that whatever global hiccup has dented progress over the past 12 months [Covid, Ukraine, etc., take your pick] will soon be in the rear-view mirror and we shouldn’t give up anticipating a return to more settled times. 

But with the conflict in the Middle East showing little sign of settling; tensions between the West and Russia ratcheting up on a weekly basis; and a second Trump presidency about to commence, it’s probably time to revise this analysis.  Indeed, it’s pretty clear that if anything is in the rear-view mirror as we move into 2025, it’s a world of certainty and predictability.

With that in mind, we awaited the results of this year’s survey with some trepidation, fearing that the resilience, optimism and positivity displayed in earlier years may finally have given way to a more pessimistic view of the future. Gratifyingly,  it seems we needn’t have worried.