U.K. High-Tech Keeps Calm and Carries on in Midst of Economic Chaos

"Keep calm and carry on" was a popular bit of wartime printed matter in the U.K. during the start of the Second World War, part of a series of posters designed to keep the populace's morale high. A recent poll from the GE High Tech Index shows that British high tech firms are taking that particular motto to heart, despite the growing chaos in the economic markets.

The results from the GE High Tech Index, this particular round of which comprising responses from 402 high tech manufacturers, shows that 77 percent of them felt at least some level of positive about their business' current performance; 31 percent called themselves "very positive" and 46 percent said "fairly positive."

This is encouraging news, and actually represents a slight uptick in overall sentiment from the last survey in December 2011, where only 73 percent had some kind of positive outlook. Moreover, nearly half of the respondents said they were focusing harder on developing markets as the result of the Eurozone crisis, and 42 percent said they were focusing harder on the U.K. market.

As for problems in the industry, many cited a problem with finding talent; nearly two thirds – 65 percent – of respondents said they'd been having some kind of difficulty in recruiting engineers for mid-level and senior-level positions.

Many are subsequently retraining their existing employees and new recruits in a bid to groom them for senior slots.

Interestingly, many high-tech firms found their prospects quite good in the near future, with 68 percent expected some level of improvement. Most of that number – 50 percent – said things would be a little better, while only 18 percent expected a lot better to emerge, and just 8 percent expected conditions to worsen.

The same could not be said for the outlook in the general economy, however, with fully 25 percent expressing positivity, and 73 percent expressing either a neutral outlook for things to stay about the same or otherwise falter, and the numbers on those fronts were about evenly split.

U.K. high-tech firms are expecting their performance to climb largely on the strength of export markets, more inquiries from potential new customers, as well as actual new orders from previously unexplored markets. Some are optimistic on the strength of new advancements on the research and development front alone.

It is unusual to see the high-tech sector looking so upbeat in the midst of an economic environment that's doing a number on entire countries, but at the same time, it's hard to argue with the motivations behind the positive outlook. The high-tech sector is seeing gains.

Mobile apps, computer equipment, mobile hardware...these things are having a downright field day, so why not expect that to continue? Businesses want to cut costs, streamline their efforts and so forth. Consumers want to cut their own costs yet still have the things they want like easy access to streaming video and the like. High-tech producers are in line to offer all these things and more, so why not have a positive outlook?

Only time will tell if the U.K.'s positive outlook is merited. But they certainly have a reason to be so upbeat, and their position is certainly rational. It will hopefully come to pass; business growth is vital to get us out of the current economic doldrums in which we currently find ourselves.

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