Public First conducted polling on Foreign Direct Investment into Britain in advance of the Government’s Investment Summit. We asked respondents a series of questions about their views towards foreign investments, the perceived benefits of FDI, and whether they think Britain’s position as an investment destination is improving or deteriorating.

In our research, we found:

• 61% of respondents said that jobs in their area created by FDI are “good quality” jobs.
• 55% of respondents identified the creation of more job opportunities as one of the main benefits of FDI, followed by economic growth (47%) and more job opportunities for young people specifically (41%).
• Around a third (31%) of respondents identified low levels of tax on businesses as one of the policies most likely to attract more foreign investment, followed by fewer changes to tax so that there is more certainty for business (29%), and improving schools and universities to develop a high skill workforce (25%).
• The picture is not entirely rosy – 35% of respondents think the UK is becoming less attractive, with 47% saying this is because we are becoming “less friendly with European countries”.

Read the full results by downloading the polling tables below.

Polling Tables

We conducted an anonymous, online survey of 2,000 respondents from 10th October 2024 to 12th October 2024. All results are weighted using Iterative Proportional Fitting, or ‘Raking’. The results are weighted by interlocking age & gender, region and social grade to Nationally Representative Proportions. Public First is a member of the British Polling Council (BPC) and abides by its rules. For more information please contact the Public First polling team: polling@publicfirst.co.uk.

Download Results Tables