Budget breakdown: What’s in it for Scale-ups?

You can find a full summary of the Autumn Budget 2025 announcements here.


The Chancellor has delivered on some of the tech sectors’ asks to support technology scale-ups. 

Reforms to the Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) scheme that techUK and other industry bodies have called have been delivered in addition to the publication of a new ‘Entrepreneurship in the UK’ prospectus published alongside the Budget.  

The Chancellor announced:

  • Increases to company eligibility for the Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) to allow scale-ups as well as start-ups in offering advantageous share schemes to attract the talent they need to grow. This scheme will be expanded from; 
    • Gross asset limits (£30m to £120m); 
    • Employee limits (250 to 500); 
    • Company share option limit (£3m to £6m); 
    • Maximum holding period (10 years to 15 years). 
  • Increased Venture Capital Trust (VCT) and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) limits, helping investors to support companies as they grow beyond start-ups; 
    • Simultaneously, however, the government intends to reduce the VCT scheme Income Tax relief from April 2026, and an increased tax on dividends with 2ppts added to both the ordinary and upper rates; 
  • A new UK Listing Relief, a three-year exemption from Stamp Duty Reserve Tax for companies listing in the UK; 
  • A call for evidence seeking inputs from scale-ups and investors on the impact of existing schemes and options to provide further support for entrepreneurship; 
  • The British Business Bank will invest at least £5 billion in growth-stage funds; 
  • UKRI investment of £4 million per year for new Enterprise Fellowships, bringing 100 top researchers into business across the UK; 
  • Up to £25 million for new entrepreneurship-focused doctoral training schemes; 
  • Launch a new £4.5 million round of the Women in Innovation Awards. 

This is a good package of reforms grounded in the experience of founders and VCs who have successfully scaled businesses. The package focuses on increasing access to capital and helps to ease the journey to scale-up by smoothing out cut-offs and threshold changes in the current system that can hold back growth.  

It also introduces new funding sources into the system and expands existing ones, such as making it easier for exited founders to reinvest in the UK ecosystem. This will help to develop a stronger founder network in the UK and hopefully increase both the capital and expertise for early-stage companies to draw upon. Finally, reforms to the EMI scheme in particular will make it easier for founders to make competitive offers and attract world leading talent to their organisations at crucial points in the scaling journey.  

In addition, the government has released two further documents – a call for evidence on tax support for entrepreneurs and a new entrepreneurship prospectus.  

Call for evidence 

HM Treasury has also announced a call for evidence on tax support for entrepeneurs, which will run until 28 February 2026. This seeks views on how the tax system can be reformed to create a more supportive environment for founders and early-stage investors. It is seeking views on; 

  • How well existing tax reliefs are performing, including; 
  • Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS); 
  • Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS); 
  • Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs); 
  • Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI); 
  • Company Share Option Plans (CSOP); 
  • Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR). 
  • Identifying gaps and cliff edges of support such as certain thresholds where investment support drops off; 
  • Possible new interventions that would better help scaling firms and support reinvestment from exited founders in the wider ecosystem; 
  • Strengthening the investment pipeline of high-growth companies.  

Entrepreneurship Prospectus 

The government has also published a new entrepreneurship prospectus, setting out further details on its plans to make the best place for businesses to start, scale, and stay.  This prospectus is built on four key pillars; 

  • R&D: The prospectus reiterates commitments in the Spending Review and Industrial Strategy to channel UKRI funding into the 8 key growth-driving sectors; 
  • Procurement: Exploring how government can better leverage its procurement spend 
  • Tax: expanded thresholds for EIS, VCT, and EMI, as outlined above.  
  • Public Finance: Expanding the roles of the British Business Bank and National Wealth Fund to anchor early and growth-stage financing (series B and beyond), and better mobilising UK pension capital.  

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