Alliance Manchester Business School has published new research suggesting that regulatory complexity and the battle for talent have become the most pressing leadership challenges for senior decision-makers in UK businesses since 2020.
The survey, commissioned by AMBS and carried out by Censuswide among 500 managers, directors, and C-suite executives, found that 73% believe business leadership has become more complex over the past five years. When asked which parts of their role had become harder since 2020, 59% cited navigating policy, regulation, and legislation — the highest-scoring response in the study.
Talent followed closely behind. More than half of respondents, 56%, said attracting and retaining the best people had become more challenging, while the same proportion said maintaining a competitive advantage over rivals was harder than it had been five years ago. Taken together, the results suggest many business leaders are operating in a more demanding environment on multiple fronts at once: regulation, recruitment, and strategic differentiation.
The findings also point to a capability gap inside organisations. While 71% of respondents said they had received training from their employer to help them perform effectively, 29% said they had not. That leaves a sizeable minority of senior decision-makers managing rising complexity without formal support, despite expectations that they will steer digital change, respond to shifting workforce demands, and adapt to new regulatory pressures.
Sarah Featherstone, director of operations at AMBS, said: “The message from business leaders is loud and clear — they feel their roles have become much more complex over the past five years. What’s telling is how this increased complexity is then translating into business outcomes, with the majority of the leaders surveyed highlighting how critical challenges, such as regulatory compliance and talent retention, are far harder today than they were in 2020.”
She added: “Businesses have found themselves in the middle of a perfect storm. How and where people work is changing; the economic climate has been challenging in recent years with inflationary pressures impacting businesses and consumers alike; AI is disrupting products, processes and systems; and employees’ financial and cultural demands are changing all the time. So, it is alarming that as many as 29% of UK business leaders have received no formal training to enable them to execute their roles well.”
For employers, this highlights that leadership capability is becoming more central to performance at the same time as the environment around leaders becomes harder to navigate. AMBS argues that the next priority is targeted upskilling, so that business leaders are better equipped to handle compliance, talent, transformation, and competitive pressure together, rather than as separate challenges.
