Barclays Bank says its Fast Growth Technology Survey forecasts healthy growth for at least the next two years as the UK’s telecoms industry finally shakes off the post-financial crisis recession. The survey measures the “growth expectations” that UK technology business leaders are building into their forward planning and reports that the telecoms segment has come out particularly well.  

The survey polls owners and CEOs of UK technology firms and shows that this year, much of the UK telecoms industry is feeling comparatively confident about its growth prospects in 2015, with expected growth of 11 per cent across the year, a rate, it points out, that’s four times faster than the UK’s GDP growth forecast of 2.6 per cent for 2015.

That’s the average expectation. A super-confident 17 per cent of UK telecoms leaders are expecting growth of between 10 per cent and 20 per cent; while 10 per cent are looking at growth of over 20 per cent.

Barclays says it gets even better in 2016 when firms, on average, expect 13 per cent growth.

Barclays’ Technology, Media and Telecoms team, puts the uplift down to the “optimism and drive of the UK telecoms sector” and assigns credit to the UK’s supposed global advantages: business culture, light-touch regulation, supportive Government policies and access to finance. Several years of stalled growth and investment - where annual growth falls markedly below the long-term average - must also have played a part.

As for what was likely to be important for sustaining or accelerating growth for the next year, those polled placed particular emphasis on marketing and advertising in addition to the strong leadership that has helped them achieve success to date.