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Management practices in the UK: 2016 to 2023

ended 13. May 2024

New data has been published today by the Office for National Statistics about management practices in the UK. Among other things, it found firms today are better managed overall than they were in 2020, that bigger firms are better managed than smaller firms and that companies with lower management scores in 2023 were four times more likely to use little to no analysis to support business decisions. Key findings below. Newspage asked business owners for their thoughts, below.

  • Our third survey of management practices saw higher average scores of 0.57 in 2023, up from 0.51 in 2020, on a scale from 0 (no implementation of structured management practices) to 1 (full implementation); this was driven by an improvement in the scores of firms with management scores below the median.
  • Firms in the services sector had higher average management scores (0.58) than firms in the production sector (0.54) in 2023; among services, firms in information and communication services had the highest average management score (0.64) while firms in the transportation and storage services sector had the lowest average score (0.49).
  • Across all industries, firms with more employees continued to have higher management practice scores in 2023; firms with more than 250 employees scored on average 0.68 compared with 0.66 for firms with 100 to 249 employees, 0.64 for firms with 50 to 99 employees, 0.59 for firms with 20 to 49 employees, and 0.53 for firms with 10 to 19 employees.
  • Almost 9 in 10 (89%) of firms surveyed in 2023 report taking some action to improve management quality; of those, 64% said they consulted employees about areas of improvement and 43% carried out formal training online, 42% in person and 13% participated in government training programmes.
  • Firms with below median management scores in 2023 were four times more likely to use little to no analysis to support business decisions.
  • One in six (17%) firms in the UK with 10 or more employees said they had tested or adopted some form of artificial intelligence; this was 36% for firms in the top decile of management practices distribution but only 3% for those in the bottom decile.

3 responses from the Newspage community

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Sam Kirk
Managing Director at J-Flex Rubber Products
Any firm still standing following recent global events is clearly well run. Companies have been through an unprecedented four years. Many businesses including ours have placed a greater emphasis on values-based recruitment to ensure they are hiring the right cultural fit. As Peter Drucker said: "Culture eats Strategy for breakfast". Many smaller businesses used the pandemic as an opportunity to re-evaluate their plans — widely referred to during Covid as "pivoting" — and to ensure their contingencies were fit for purpose, which may have contributed to the improvement in management practices.
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Stephen Perkins
Managing Director at Yellow Brick Mortgages
On the one hand, employees are increasingly keeping employers on their toes and expecting better structure and management, which is a positive and likely a driving force in this data. On the other, the difficult trading conditions in recent years due to the pandemic, inflation, gepolitical uncertainty and dwindling economy, mean that any firm that has not been well managed would likely already have failed. Therefore those that have weathered the storm are well managed, and clearly taking care over each and every decision.
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Michelle Lawson
Director at Lawson Financial
This report should be read with caution since, as we all know, you can make statistics whatever you want. This can depend on the company, the age demographic and location - there are so many variables. From what I am seeing, customer service is at an all-time low and process seems to be more paramount than the consumer.