UK Autumn Budget 2025: A Northern Ireland Lens on Ethnic Minority Businesses, Entrepreneurship, Employment and Career

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Written by Steve Lazars

Impact On NI Ethnic Minority Business & Entrepreneurship

The Autumn Budget 2025 presents a mixed landscape for Northern Ireland’s ethnic minority entrepreneurs. Under the Windsor Framework, NI businesses continue to benefit from frictionless access to the EU single market while maintaining full trading rights with Great Britain. This unique trading position gives NI-based firms a substantial competitive advantage and is particularly beneficial for minority-led enterprises that operate in import-driven retail, food distribution, cultural goods, cross-border wholesale and early-stage digital manufacturing. It also strengthens NI’s status as a location for innovation-led start-ups by providing regulatory certainty and dual-market access. Ethnic minority founders are increasingly active in these areas, with 18% of NI tech start-ups and 22% of digital health ventures now led by minority entrepreneurs, according to Beauhurst. Their growing contribution aligns strongly with the Budget’s £22.6 billion R&D commitment and the development of AI, low-carbon and advanced manufacturing zones.

However, a major structural concern emerges with the removal of the £135 low-value consignment relief from March 2029. This will profoundly affect NI’s ethnic grocery stores, spice importers, fabric retailers and cultural-goods traders, who depend heavily on sub-£135 parcels due to the specialist and fragmented nature of global supply chains. The change is forecast to add 25–40% to landed costs, and because NI freight charges are already 30–60% higher than GB, the impact will be felt far more sharply. With gross margins in ethnic food retailing often below 22%, this policy shift threatens business survival, particularly for micro-importers with no viable way to consolidate shipments.

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Impact On Ethnic Minority Employment & Labour Market Conditions

Ethnic minority workers are a key part of Northern Ireland’s labour force, with particularly strong representation in hospitality, retail, food production, logistics, cleaning services and health and social care. One in four workers in these sectors is from an ethnic minority background, making minority labour central to NI’s economic functioning. The Budget’s National Living Wage rise to £12.71 and adjustments to Employer NIC thresholds will significantly raise operating costs for labour-intensive industries, with NI Chamber modelling predicting an 8–14% increase. Because ethnic minority employees are disproportionately located in low-paid, insecure or entry-level positions, they are more vulnerable to reductions in hours, stalled recruitment and wage compression.

These cost pressures align with deeper structural fragilities: frozen income tax and NI thresholds until 2030–31 will intensify fiscal drag on households that already earn 18% below the regional median. Meanwhile, immigration changes pose an additional threat. The increase in the Skilled Worker salary threshold to £38,000 to £41,000 restricts recruitment channels for sectors such as hospitality, care and logistics; higher family visa income requirements constrain household stability; limitations on care-worker dependants deepen staffing shortages; and uncertainty surrounding the Graduate Route makes it harder to retain international graduates who contribute heavily to NI’s start-up and innovation ecosystem. Collectively, these changes place ethnic minority workers and employers at a disadvantage precisely when NI needs to expand its labour capacity.

Impact On Economic Capacity, Future Risks & Policy Recommendations

Northern Ireland stands at an inflection point. Its demographic diversity, international workforce and fast-growing innovation ecosystem give it the potential to become one of the UK’s most competitive small economies. At the same time, fragile supply chains, high logistics costs, a limited domestic market and unequal access to finance continue to constrain that potential. The OBR’s national forecast of 60,000 job losses by 2028 would translate into 6,000–9,000 fewer jobs in NI, disproportionately affecting South Asian, African, Chinese and Eastern European workers. Rising import costs, labour shortages caused by visa restrictions, and higher wage obligations risk undermining business stability in the very sectors where minority entrepreneurs provide economic resilience.

To prevent the Autumn Budget from entrenching inequality or weakening NI’s minority-led growth sectors, a coordinated policy response is required. This involves recognising the strategic role of ethnic minority SMEs in NI’s food ecosystem, high streets, care sector and innovation clusters. It also requires a workforce plan that protects the contribution of migrant workers, safeguards family stability and ensures NI remains attractive to international students and skilled migrants. Economic capacity will ultimately depend on how effectively Stormont and Westminster address the pressures emerging from the Budget.

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The Four Recommendations

I would like to highlights four reccommendation to protect NI’s economic stability and unlock the full contribution of its ethnic minority communities.

➡️ First, Northern Ireland requires a transitional import support mechanism tailored to culturally significant goods, which would help micro-importers absorb rising costs as the £135 relief is abolished and avoid widespread business closures in ethnic food and cultural-goods retail.

➡️ Second, ethnic minority-led innovation must be embedded within NI’s City and Growth Deal frameworks so that minority founders gain equitable access to R&D funding, accelerator programmes, procurement opportunities and digital transformation initiatives. This is essential to ensure that NI’s innovation economy reflects its demographic diversity and harnesses the creativity of its minority entrepreneurs.

➡️ Third, a coordinated outreach strategy is needed to ensure that apprenticeships, the Youth Guarantee and skills programmes meaningfully reach ethnic minority workers and young people. Delivery through trusted networks is critical, especially as visa restrictions tighten and employers become more reliant on local talent development.

➡️ Fourth, NI must prioritise a regional retention strategy of international talent that includes employer incentives, clearer post-study work routes, and partnerships between government, universities and industry. Retaining this talent is critical if Northern Ireland is to sustain innovation momentum, diversify its labour market and remain competitive within the dual-market environment created by the Windsor Framework.

These four actions would collectively strengthen business resilience, safeguard employment, and position Northern Ireland to turn its growing diversity into a long-term economic advantage.

Written by Steve Lazars