Impact Reports
The future looks bright for Oxfordshire’s businesses.
Oxfordshire’s small and medium sized businesses have capable leaders, they have diverse networks, they have a clear sense of purpose, and WE have support available to help them to achieve their ambitions or overcome challenges.
Our latest impact report demonstrates our hard work and commitment to supporting businesses over the last 6 years through a time of change and many challenges. We are proud that we have been, and continue to
be there for every small and medium sized business based or trading in Oxfordshire.
Reflecting on the impacts from six years of support for Oxfordshire businesses
There are over 43,000 registered companies in Oxfordshire, at least 99% of which are SMEs. There are also an estimated 50,000 sole-traders. Amongst these are budding entrepreneurs, high-tech university spin-outs, builders, bakers and everything in between. Some are social enterprises, charities or otherwise purpose-driven.
OxLEP Business and Skills support is available to all of them, and in this impact report we collectively refer to them as ‘businesses’. OxLEP Business and Skills overarching aims are to:
- Support Oxfordshire SMEs to start, grow and thrive as part of a: ‘vibrant, sustainable, inclusive, world-leading economy – driven by innovation, enterprise and research excellence’; and,
- Support businesses to recruit skilled people in a county characterised by very low unemployment.
- Ensuring each and every person gets better access to employment and training.
Oxfordshire’s businesses had proven themselves resilient, a capability that would again prove essential as the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis created new pressures. Throughout this time the OxLEP Business and Skills teams have been putting businesses need’s first and providing much needed support to help them to develop their staff, innovate and embrace growth.
This has been a time of change, for both businesses and for OxLEP, evolving together and responding to challenges. The European funded programmes may have come to an end, and celebrating the impacts they enabled was the catalyst for this six-year reflection. However, the legacy of those programmes and the new funding and support that is in place for businesses, means that there is plenty to be excited about.
