Swift Spring Edition 2026
You can now find our latest edition of Swift here, containing updates from The IFT and articles from our members...
Our Q4 2025 update can be found here.
The Q4 2025 survey of IFT partners highlighted sustained demand for turnaround and restructuring activity in the last quarter of 2025, with 67% of respondents reporting increased activity and the rest similar levels of activity. Retail was the busiest sector in Q4 for IFT partners responding to the survey.
Throughout 2025 we can largely see continuing high levels of demand for turnaround and restructuring, across a number of different sectors, though we can see some concentration in consumer-facing industries such as retail and casual dining in later quarters as cost and consumer demand pressures continue.
According to FRP data, numbers of distressed businesses continued to rise in 2025, with construction consistently the most distressed. However, insolvencies saw a decline of just over 5% over the year, though remaining at a fairly high level.
Leaving aside sector specific issues, i.e. the well-known planning and delivery issues plaguing the construction sector, the reasons for distress most commonly cited by IFT partner firms, were debt maturity, the cost of servicing debt, depletion of working capital, inflationary pressures and withdrawal of shareholder support/funding. Access to funding and cost pressures are central to business distress across UK sectors.
Milly Camley, CEO of The IFT said: “The Q4 data and insights across 2025 show that whilst UK businesses are resilient, there are increasing levels of distress amid prolonged cost pressures and uncertainty, which without access to expert support could translate to insolvencies. Engaging with turnaround support can help businesses adapt, transform and ultimately succeed, as indicated by our Impact Report for 2024-25, which estimated that IFT accredited independent members saved nearly 60,000 jobs over that period and added £2.8 billion in shareholder value”.
