THE ECONOMY in Coventry and Warwickshire is ‘exceeding’ national trends according to a new survey, despite a fragile start to 2026.
Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce’s latest Quarterly Economic Survey was the first conducted this year and showed a slight dip in the overall economy for the region – and that was before the conflict in the Middle East flared up.
The survey, which is delivered in partnership with Prime Accountants Group and measures how business owners are feeling, is analysed by the Business Intelligence Service at Warwickshire County Council.
From the responses of businesses across the service and manufacturing sectors, it gives scores out of 100 where anything above 50 indicates growth and anything below 50 is negative.
It looks at a range of aspects of doing business in the region, including the outlook for employment, investment, confidence, and current and future order books for both domestic and overseas sales.
The survey showed an improvement in domestic sales in both the services and manufacturing sectors, and growth in overseas sales in manufacturing.
Manufacturing, generally, saw improvements in investment and cashflow, as well as the outlook for employment.
The services sector, however, saw a drop in all of those measures and a general dip in confidence.
Crucially, confidence in both services and manufacturing is above the 50-point mark, which is an indicator of growth and puts the region ahead of the national average.
Corin Crane, chief executive of Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “There was a sense of growing confidence at the start of the year but as we conducted this survey, events in the Middle East were starting to dominate headlines and there is no doubt that was already starting to weigh on business sentiment.
“Companies across the region have started almost every year over the past decade hoping for stability and certainty and have had the rug pulled from underneath them every time. It feels as though it’s happening again.
“Our plea to Government is to do all it can to accelerate its policies on growth – from planning to skills – in order to squeeze every bit of growth we can out of the domestic economy.
“But, we all acknowledge that global events will continue to impact what happens here in Coventry and Warwickshire, where we remain ahead of the national average when it comes to the economic outlook.”
