National Strategy for Economic Transformation: third annual report

NSET Year Three Summary

Our Economy:

• GDP: £209.6bn onshore GDP. Since 2007, GDP per capita (accounting for population growth) has grown 10.3%, compared to 6.1% at UK level.
• 3.8% unemployment.
• 2.45 million payrolled employees. Since 2007, productivity has grown at 1.1% annually, compared to 0.4% at UK level.
• Average earnings forecast to grow faster than the UK.
• Wellbeing Economy: Income inequality performance maintained; proportionally more earning the Real Living Wage than UK; 93% of young people in work, education or training; gender pay gap at 2.2%, lower than UK’s 7%.
• Scotland’s Businesses: 358,235 private sector businesses; number of registered businesses increased by 715 in the latest year; 355,805 SMEs providing around 1.2 million jobs; number of high-growth businesses increased by 790 between 2020–2023.

Our delivery milestones:

• Reaching 100% (R100) programme connected over 82,500 premises and laid 16 new subsea fibre cables.
• Techscaler network boosting entrepreneurship with 7 regional hubs supporting over 1,740 members.
• Enterprise agencies supported creation or safeguarding of 16,100 jobs and helped unlock £1.37 billion in planned capital investment.
• Secured second highest annual foreign direct investment: 135 projects.
• Supported over 3,000 jobs and £168 million in supply chain spend through Scottish National Investment Bank investments.
• Invested almost £150 million in offshore wind supply chain and ports projects, leveraging up to £670 million in private investment.