Indian Firms in the UK Surge 60%: The Quiet CETA Boom

While much of corporate India spent 2026 fretting about a weak rupee and choppy domestic markets, a quieter story was unfolding 7,000 kilometres away. Indian companies in the UK have just had their best year on record — and the numbers are striking enough to reframe how we think about where India Inc. is actually growing. According to the latest India Meets Britain Tracker, the number of Indian-owned firms operating in Britain leapt nearly 60% in a single year, their combined turnover crossed £105 billion, and they now employ more than 200,000 people. For a relationship long defined by colonial history and cricket rivalries, this is a remarkable role reversal: Indian capital is increasingly underwriting British jobs, tax receipts and high-street balance sheets.

Indian Companies in the UK Hit a Record High

The headline figure is the one that jumps out. The number of Indian-owned companies with UK subsidiaries rose from 1,197 in 2025 to 1,912 in 2026 — an expansion of roughly 60% in twelve months. That is not the slow, incremental creep of a maturing trade relationship; it is a step-change.

The financial weight behind those firms grew just as fast. Combined turnover climbed from about £72 billion to £105.77 billion, while corporation tax paid to the British exchequer rose from £277 million to £378 million. Employment surged from roughly 126,700 to 203,549 — meaning Indian-owned businesses added tens of thousands of British jobs in a single reporting cycle.

The Tracker, compiled by Grant Thornton UK in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the India Global Forum, has run for well over a decade. It typically spotlights the fastest-growing Indian-owned corporates in Britain — those with turnover above £5 million, year-on-year revenue growth of at least 10%, and a track record of at least two years. This year, that cohort posted an average growth rate of around 61%, up sharply from 42% the previous year. In other words, the firms that were already growing are now growing far faster.

The CETA Effect: A Trade Deal Starts to Bite

Numbers this large rarely move without a catalyst, and here it has a name: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), signed by India and the UK in July 2025 after years of negotiation. The deal slashed tariffs across a swathe of goods and, crucially, gave businesses on both sides the legal certainty they need to commit capital for the long haul.

The early evidence suggests it is working. Bilateral trade between the two countries reached roughly £47.9 billion, up about 10% year-on-year, with both governments openly targeting $100 billion in two-way trade by 2030. A trade agreement does not directly create subsidiaries, but it changes the calculus in boardrooms: lower friction, predictable rules and reduced duties make setting up a British arm look less like a gamble and more like a logical next step for an ambitious Indian exporter or services firm.

It helps that the timing aligned with a broader push. High-profile ministerial visits and investment forums through late 2025 produced more than a billion pounds in announced commitments, and the political will on both sides has been unusually visible. For Indian firms weighing where to plant their flag in Europe, post-Brexit Britain hungry for foreign capital has become an attractive landing pad.

Who Is Actually Driving the Growth

Strip away the aggregate figures and the texture of the story emerges. Technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) remains the single largest sector, leading the Tracker for the thirteenth consecutive year and accounting for around a third of the companies on the list. This is the modern face of Indian enterprise abroad — software services, digital platforms, IT consulting and engineering firms following their clients into the British market.

But the marquee names are still the industrial heavyweights. Jaguar Land Rover, owned by Tata Motors, remains the largest single Indian-owned employer in the UK with more than 44,000 staff — a reminder that an iconic British marque has been Indian-owned for over a decade and a half. Tata Steel follows with close to 20,000 employees, and other established players such as Borelli Tea Holdings, Essar Oil and engineering firm Cyient round out the upper ranks. Together they anchor the relationship in heavy industry even as the fast-growth energy comes from technology and pharma.

Pharmaceuticals and manufacturing sit just behind TMT in sector focus, reflecting India's genuine strengths: generic medicines, specialty chemicals and precision components are areas where Indian firms compete globally rather than merely supplying the home market.

Beyond London: A Geographic Rebalancing

One of the most underappreciated shifts in this year's data is geographic. London's share of Indian-owned companies has fallen to about 38%, down from more than half in earlier years. That is not a sign of decline in the capital — it is a sign of spread. Indian firms are increasingly setting up in the Midlands, the North of England and Wales, regions that successive British governments have struggled to revive.

This matters politically as much as commercially. "Levelling up" the UK's regional economies has been a stated goal across the political spectrum, and foreign investment that lands in Birmingham, Manchester or Cardiff rather than the City of London carries outsized symbolic and practical value. When Indian capital builds a facility or a back office in a post-industrial town, it brings the kind of stable, skilled employment that local economies covet.

Around a quarter of the companies on this year's Tracker are new entrants — firms that simply were not on the radar a year ago. That churn signals a pipeline that is broadening, not a one-off spike driven by a handful of giants.

Why This Story Cuts Against the Grain

What makes this development genuinely worth reading is how neatly it inverts the usual narrative. India is typically discussed as a destination for foreign capital — a market that courts inward investment from the US, Japan and Europe. Yet here, Indian companies are functioning as a source of capital, jobs and tax revenue for a developed economy that badly needs all three.

It also complicates the gloomier domestic storyline. Indian markets have been jittery, and economists have worried that net foreign direct investment into India is being eroded by repatriation and rising outward investment by Indian firms. This UK boom is, in part, the flip side of that very coin: some of the capital leaving India is not fleeing — it is expanding, building durable businesses in mature markets and bringing profits, brand equity and global experience back home over time.

There are caveats worth keeping in mind. A 60% jump in firm count partly reflects better tracking and the surge of new entrants, and headline turnover is concentrated in a few industrial titans like JLR. The deeper question is whether the CETA momentum sustains beyond the initial enthusiasm or fades once the novelty of tariff cuts wears off.

What Comes Next

The direction of travel, for now, points up. With CETA still in its early innings and both governments chasing that $100 billion trade target, the structural tailwinds are real. If Indian firms continue diversifying away from London and into Britain's regions, the relationship could deepen in ways that are politically sticky and hard to reverse.

For India, the strategic prize is bigger than any single trade statistic. A robust corporate footprint in Britain gives Indian companies a credible European base, access to deep capital markets and a proving ground for global ambitions. For Britain, it offers jobs, tax and investment at a moment when growth is scarce. The old imperial hierarchy has quietly flipped — and the 2026 Tracker is the clearest evidence yet that the flip is accelerating.

Source: business-standard.com