Beyond London: Why Private Capital is Becoming a Regional Growth Engine

Recent figures highlighted by Michael Moore, CEO of UK Private Capital, offer a powerful reminder that the UK's growth story is increasingly being written outside the capital.

The latest investment data from Yorkshire, the Humber and the North East demonstrates not only the scale of private capital deployment, but also its growing role in supporting innovation, productivity and long-term economic resilience.

Over the past five years, private capital firms have invested £7.1 billion into businesses across Yorkshire and the Humber and £2.6 billion into the North East. Those investments now support more than 230,000 jobs across both regions and have helped hundreds of businesses accelerate growth, scale operations and expand into international markets.

Perhaps most importantly, the data suggests that these are not isolated success stories. Companies backed by private capital are consistently outperforming their peers, with stronger growth trajectories and greater capacity to invest in innovation.

This matters because the conversation around capital allocation is changing.

For much of the past decade, investors have focused heavily on globalisation, technology and financial market returns. Increasingly, however, attention is shifting towards resilience, productivity, infrastructure and the ability of economies to generate sustainable growth from within.

Private capital sits at the centre of that discussion.

By providing long-term capital, strategic support and operational expertise, investors are helping management teams bridge one of the most challenging phases in a company's lifecycle: the transition from promising business to scaled enterprise.

The emergence of strong university spinout ecosystems across Yorkshire and the North East further strengthens the investment case. With more than 190 spinouts identified across the two regions, the foundations are being laid for future growth in sectors such as artificial intelligence, deep technology, advanced manufacturing and life sciences.

The challenge now is how to ensure sufficient capital continues to reach these opportunities.

Questions around pension reform, domestic investment, infrastructure development and capital markets competitiveness are becoming increasingly interconnected. Policymakers, institutional investors and private capital providers are all asking similar questions:

How can more long-term capital be directed into productive assets?

How can regional growth opportunities be unlocked at greater scale?

What role should institutional investors play in supporting innovation and economic renewal?

These themes will be central to discussions at RAOEurope26 under the banner of Capital Allocation in an Age of Fragmentation.

As investors navigate geopolitical uncertainty, technological disruption and changing economic priorities, the ability to identify and support long-term growth opportunities will become an increasingly important differentiator.

The evidence emerging from Yorkshire and the North East suggests that private capital is already playing a critical role in that future.

The question for investors now is not whether these opportunities exist.

It is whether enough capital is being mobilised to capture them.

This article is part of a much larger conversation around regional growth, pension capital, productive finance and UK competitiveness—which aligns perfectly with the "The UK Opportunity: Pensions, Growth & National Renewal" session on your RAOEurope26 agenda. Read Michael Moore’s post here. Well worth a read.