Department for Business and Trade (DBT)

Role

Responsible for supporting UK business growth, trade, and investment. Policy owner for the Modern Industrial Strategy. Coordinates the eight IS-8 sector plans.

Strategies owned

• industrial-strategy-2025 — Modern Industrial Strategy 2025; all 8 sector plans

Outcomes accountable for

• economic-growth-gdp — IS-8 business investment; £72.33bn investment commitments; 50,000+ jobs
• Industrial Strategy Growth Capital (£4bn via British Business Bank)

Key figures

• £72.33bn investment commitments (corrected from £79.28bn in Q4 2025)
• 27 home-grown businesses meeting IS criteria (December 2025)
• £9bn UKRI funding to IS-8 sectors

Measurement constraints

• Investment commitments are nominal lifetime values at announcement — not realised investment
• Clean Energy Industries sector “cannot be proxied at all under the SIC system”
• Sectors are not mutually exclusive — businesses can span multiple IS-8 categories

Tensions

• skills-shortage-cross-sector — IS-8 sectors compete for the same talent pool
• delivery-confidence-fiscal-ambition — IS investment data correction (Uniper) indicates measurement reliability issues