It's been a weird morning for the Square Mile. Honestly, if you'd asked most analysts last week how the UK was looking, you would've gotten a lot of sighs and "it's complicated" responses. But the data that just dropped from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has changed the vibe.
Basically, the UK economy grew by 0.3% in November.
Now, I know that sounds like a tiny number—hardly enough to buy a celebratory pint—but it actually beat what everyone was expecting. Most of the "smart money" was betting on a measly 0.1%. Instead, we got a bit of a bounce back. This is the heart of the business news today UK landscape: we’re seeing a country that is stubbornly refusing to slip into a proper recession, even if it feels like we're walking through treacle sometimes.
The FTSE 100 Just Hit a Massive Milestone
If you haven't checked your pension lately, you might want to take a peek. The FTSE 100 has been flirting with the 10,000 mark for a while now, and it finally pushed past it during this New Year rally. Today, the index closed up 0.5% at 10,238.94.
It’s kind of a psychological barrier more than anything, but it matters for confidence.
Interestingly, it wasn't the usual suspects leading the charge. While the big banks are doing okay, the real star today was Schroders. Their shares jumped nearly 10% after they forecast an operating profit of £745 million for the year. That’s a 24% increase. It turns out that when people get nervous about the economy, they flock to asset managers who actually know how to navigate the mess.
On the flip side, the high street is still feeling the burn. Dunelm saw its shares crater by 20% today. It’s a classic story: they had a "softer" second quarter than they hoped for, and now they're warning that profits will be at the bottom end of what they promised. It seems we’re all happy to buy a new rug when we feel rich, but as soon as the heating bill hits, that's the first thing to go.
Why Rio Tinto and Glencore Are the Only Things People Are Talking About
There is a monster deal brewing in the background that could redefine the mining world. Glencore shares have been surging because everyone is whispering about a "mega-merger" with Rio Tinto.
If this actually happens, it’ll be the biggest mining deal in history.
Why now? Because 2026 is becoming the year of "scale or die." With the global shift toward green energy—think electric vehicle batteries and massive wind farms—you need an ungodly amount of copper and lithium. Small players can’t keep up with the infrastructure costs. Combining these two giants would create a company so big it could practically dictate global supply chains.
The Bank of England’s "Slow and Steady" Game
Let’s talk about your mortgage. The Bank of England base rate currently sits at 3.75%.
Remember when it was basically zero? Those days are long gone. However, we did get a 0.25% cut back in December, and the ripples are finally hitting the high street banks today. Halifax and Nationwide are both busy adjusting their variable rates this week.
- Halifax is dropping its homeowner variable rate to 7.24% starting February 1st.
- Nationwide has already moved its base mortgage rate down to 5.75%.
The Governor, Andrew Bailey, has been hinting that more cuts are coming, but he's being incredibly cagey about it. He's worried about "services inflation"—basically the cost of haircuts, restaurant meals, and accounting. If those stay high because wages are going up, he won't budge. It’s a total balancing act. One wrong move and inflation (currently sitting around 3.2%) could spike back up, and then we're all back in the soup.
The "Tourist Tax" and the Pub Crisis
There’s some local drama that’s actually a huge deal for the hospitality sector. London is looking at a 3% tourist tax on hotel rooms. The Mayor thinks it could rake in £350 million a year. Sounds great for the city’s coffers, right? Well, if you run a hotel, you’re probably livid. They’re arguing that it’ll just drive tourists to Paris or Berlin instead.
And then there are the pubs.
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More than 5,000 pubs across the UK are facing a massive hike in business rates. Some tax valuations have literally doubled. We’ve already seen TGI Fridays shut 16 sites recently, and while a rescue deal saved about 30 others, the industry is on a knife-edge. Even the boss of Greggs (everyone's favorite sausage roll purveyor) admitted that the rise of weight-loss jabs like Ozempic is making them rethink their menu. When even Greggs is worried about people eating fewer pastries, you know the market is shifting.
Green Energy: The £90 Million Windfall
On a more positive note for the "UK PLC" brand, the government just handed out a record number of offshore windfarm contracts. We're talking 12 new projects.
This is a massive win for Ed Miliband’s 2030 clean power goal. They’ve managed to secure enough capacity to power 12 million homes. The price is locked in at around £90 per megawatt-hour. It’s not exactly "cheap" compared to 2019 prices, but in a world where gas prices are all over the place because of global tensions, it’s about as secure as it gets.
What You Should Actually Do With This Information
It’s easy to get lost in the sea of numbers, but the business news today UK actually suggests a very specific strategy for the next six months.
- Fix your mortgage if you can, but don't panic. If you're on a tracker, you're finally seeing the benefit of the December cut. If you're looking to refix, wait for the Spring. Most analysts expect at least one more 0.25% cut before May.
- Watch the mid-caps. The FTSE 250 (the smaller, more UK-focused companies) is actually outperforming the big FTSE 100 today. This tells us that investors are starting to trust the domestic UK economy again, not just the global giants.
- Audit your tech spend. If you're a business owner, the "AI experimentation" phase is over. Companies like NatWest are reporting that the most successful SMEs in 2026 are the ones that have stopped "playing" with ChatGPT and have actually integrated operational AI to cut their administrative overheads by at least 15%.
- Energy hedging is back. With BP writing down $5 billion in green assets to refocus on oil and gas, don't expect energy prices to stay stable forever. If your business is energy-intensive, now is a decent window to lock in rates while the market is relatively calm.
The bottom line? The UK isn't "booming" yet, but the engine is finally turning over without that terrifying grinding noise we heard all through 2025. It's a time for cautious expansion, not hiding under the duvet.
If you're managing a portfolio, keep an eye on the mining sector specifically over the next 48 hours. If the Glencore-Rio Tinto talks get confirmed by the regulators, we’re going to see a massive shift in how the FTSE is weighted. For now, take the 0.3% GDP growth for what it is: a sign that the "sick man of Europe" tag is finally being peeled off.