Lloyds Offers Cautious Optimism for UK

In the FT today, Charlie Nunn, CEO of Lloyds Banking Group, argues that despite recent UK GDP contractions and warnings from the OBR about diminished economic resilience, the country is poised for growth if can avoid a decade of drift.

He highlights rising business confidence, backed by Lloyds' own barometer and a Deloitte CFO survey placing the UK as a top global investment destination, alongside India. Nunn supports the government’s 10-year financial services strategy and £725bn infrastructure plan, but insists success hinges on regulatory reform, stronger bank lending to SMEs and unlocking tech-driven innovation.

The UK’s competitive edge in sectors like life sciences, clean energy and defence must now be converted into real economic returns through public-private collaboration.

Careless coding causes chaos for companies

The future of software delivery depends not just on how fast you move but on how smartly and responsibly you do it.

Software teams are delivering faster but often at the cost of quality. Sixty-three percent deploy untested code and 42 percent lose over $1 million a year to software issues. But the Tricentis 2025 Quality Transformation Report states that speed alone will not deliver results without a culture that prioritises quality and alignment.

• Financial services firms are hit the hardest. The top barriers include technical debt, poor communication between teams and misalignment with leadership.
• Two-thirds of organisations expect a major outage in the next year. Confidence in AI is rising fast.
• Nine in ten leaders say they can measure ROI from generative AI and nearly all see autonomous testing as key to boosting speed and quality.
• The report also points to deeper shifts underway. Cloud migration and application modernisation are now top priorities as organisations prepare for AI-driven delivery.
• However only 40 percent of leaders say they understand how AI produces its results which raises long-term risks.
• Regional differences are sharp. Latin America focuses on speed while APAC leans toward quality and EMEA prioritises automation.
• Meanwhile developers are expanding their skillsets to manage ethical risks and work effectively with AI tools.

Have a good day

Dan