Every summer, the EY UK Attractiveness Survey and Irwin Mitchell’s Attractiveness Index land within weeks of each other, and every year the North East headline reads the same way: down. This year’s inward investment north east figures are no exception. Regional FDI project numbers fell sharply in 2025, and neither Newcastle, Sunderland, nor the Tees Valley feature near the top of the structural rankings that benchmark skills, infrastructure and growth potential against London, Manchester or Edinburgh.
Why inward investment north east numbers don’t tell the full story
When we talk about FDI (Foreign Direct Investment), we aren’t just looking at abstract numbers on a corporate spreadsheet; we are talking about global companies physically investing capital into our region, whether that means building brand-new manufacturing plants, expanding existing facilities, or acquiring local businesses. Look beneath the headline, though, and a more useful story emerges, one that has direct implications for how this region should be advised on property, investment and growth.
First, the project-count headline is a blunt instrument. Annual FDI figures are notoriously noisy: investment values go undeclared, job figures are disputed, and a single large announcement can be counted across several years. A region the size of the North East will always look more volatile, project to project, than London or the South East simply because of scale. What the headline misses is multiplier value, specifically the supply chain spend, skills development and follow-on investment that a handful of anchor projects in offshore wind, battery manufacturing and clean energy generate locally, particularly around the Teesside Freeport and the Northumberland-Tyneside Investment Zone. That is where the real, durable value of inward investment sits, and it is realised through deals, leases and site assembly, not through the press release.
Second, and just as important: a region that measures its success solely by its ability to attract outside capital is fighting only half the battle. The North East’s own SME base, already trading from our high streets, business parks and industrial estates, is where the bulk of regional employment sits and where genuine productivity gains are won. The evidence is consistent: businesses that scale up see materially higher productivity than those that don’t, and scaling depends on access to the right premises, the right finance, and the right advice at the right moment. A regional strategy that chases FDI announcements while overlooking the everyday SME that needs a rent review handled fairly, a lease renewal negotiated competently, or a new unit found to expand into, is only ever telling half the growth story.
This is precisely the space JK Property Consultants occupies, and why our breadth across agency, lease advisory, rent reviews, dilapidations and valuation matters more than ever in the current market. We sit at the intersection of both engines of regional growth:
On the inward investment side, our work on sites like the major regeneration schemes in Newcastle, Sunderland and Darlington, and Tees Valley International Airport, together with our marketing of Grade A space such as 4/6 Trinity Chare and the Picture House at Team Valley, and the strategic employment site of 30 acres at Jarrow, puts us directly in front of the operators, investors and occupiers that the EY and Irwin Mitchell data shows are increasingly weighing up the North East against other UK locations. We understand what makes a site investable and we know how to position it credibly to a market that has become more selective.
On the SME side, our lease advisory practice, built on RICS standards and a deep command of rent review, renewal, dilapidations and service charge dispute work, is exactly the kind of grounded, technical support that allows growing local businesses to scale with confidence rather than be caught out by lease terms that don’t serve their ambitions. Our relationship with the North East Business and Innovation Centre reinforces this further, keeping us close to the start-ups and early-stage occupiers coming through its programmes and giving us a genuine, ground-level understanding of what SMEs and growing occupiers actually need from their premises and their advisors. This holds true not just at the point of FDI announcement, but at every stage from first unit to expansion to renewal. Helping a North East business secure the right premises on the right terms is, in its own quiet way, as significant a contribution to regional GVA as landing a single large FDI project, and it is work that compounds, deal after deal, across the client base we have built over years in this market.
This dual approach is exactly what our region’s own authorities have been building towards over the past year, and it is worth setting out because it underlines just how aligned JK Property Consultants’ advisory model already is with where regional strategy is heading. The North East Combined Authority’s £4.4bn investment prospectus, launched last year, set out industrial, commercial and residential opportunities across more than 18bn sq ft of sites, and the region continues to record among the highest FDI jobs per capita of any UK area. Delivery is now visible on the ground: an £11.3m North East Investment Zone commitment is unlocking the next phase of NETPark in County Durham, a £2bn Mayoral Development Zone is under way in Newcastle Gateshead, a £1.85bn transport settlement is funding the first Tyne and Wear Metro expansion in thirty years, and a new £22m housing programme is targeting over 1,100 homes on brownfield and stalled sites. None of that happens without agency, valuation and lease advisory expertise translating ambition into deliverable transactions, which is precisely where we operate.
Tees Valley Combined Authority tells a similarly strong story. Its £160m Investment Zone, delivered with Teesside University, is driving innovation clusters in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, including new production and studio space at Hartlepool’s Northern Studios. Crucially, its Strategic Economic Plan places SMEs, innovation and individuals at the centre of the region’s growth ambitions rather than treating them as a secondary concern to inward investment, and that is backed by real programmes. Tees Valley Labs, funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, runs The Stable business incubator and The Forge accelerator for local start-ups and scale-ups, while the Tees Valley Securing Investment programme connects SMEs directly with grants, funding and private investment routes.
That same start-up and scale-up infrastructure runs right across the wider region through the North East Business and Innovation Centre and Sunderland Software City, both of which we work closely alongside. The North East BIC has spent over three decades supporting hundreds of new businesses a year from its Sunderland, Darlington and Washington centres, and its Enterprising Sunderland Innovation Grants have already helped local firms, from manufacturers to tech start-ups, scale up with real, deliverable funding rather than just advice. Sunderland Software City performs the same function for the region’s fast-growing digital and tech economy, running talent pipelines and SME-focused digital adoption programmes across Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland as well as Wearside. Our connection into both organisations keeps us close to the businesses actually coming through these pipelines, so when a BIC or Software City client is ready for its first proper premises, or a Tees Valley Labs graduate is ready to scale into a bigger unit, we understand their journey and their needs before the conversation about space even begins.
The North East doesn’t need to choose between courting outside investment and backing its own businesses. It needs advisors who understand both halves of that equation and can move fluently between them. That is the role JK Property Consultants has built itself to play, and it is one we intend to keep playing as this region’s investment story, properly understood, continues to be stronger than the headlines suggest.
Secure Your Premises. Protect Your Cash Flow.
Landlords naturally focus on risk and income certainty, while tenants prioritise cost and fairness. When regional market dynamics and regulatory frameworks shift quickly, finding an equitable outcome requires technical excellence and deep local insight. Navigating complex lease terms, unexpected service charge hikes, or terminal dilapidations claims shouldn’t create friction for your business growth.
At JK Property Consultants, our Lease Advisory practice is built strictly on RICS professional standards and decades of regional expertise. We handle the technical negotiations to keep landlord-tenant relationships stable, productive, and aligned with your long-term commercial goals.
Don’t leave your property strategy to the headlines.
Contact the JK Property Consultants team today to protect and optimise your portfolio.
