The air is thick with the smell of paint and toolboxes are stacked on the floor inside Cutting Edge Hair Design in Old Harlow, Essex. Owner Emma Stillwell, 37, decided to use the enforced closure during the latest lockdown to spruce...
A London skyscraper is poised to become the UK’s most expensive office block after being put up for sale for £1.8bn, in an acid test for whether the move to remote working during the coronavirus pandemic is expected to last....
A vast range of goods from Ikea furnishings to tens of thousands of livestock were stuck in the maritime traffic jam caused by the Suez canal blockage. More than 360 vessels were stranded in the Mediterranean to the north of the canal...
Global investment bank Citigroup has banned work video calls on Fridays in an attempt to help employees break free from the “relentlessness of the pandemic workday”. Jane Fraser, Citi’s new chief executive, told staff that the last day of the working week...
Uber is to guarantee its 70,000 UK drivers a minimum hourly wage, holiday pay and pensions after a landmark supreme court ruling. The ride-hailing app said drivers would start benefiting from the changes from Wednesday while retaining the right to...
UK retail sales plunged in January as the national lockdown took a far greater toll on the high street than economists had forecast. Official figures showed total sales dropped 8.2 per cent as non-essential shops closed their doors. A consensus of analysts had predicted...
Jaguar Land Rover, the UK-based carmaker, will make its Jaguar brand electric-only by 2025 and abandon petrol vehicles entirely in the middle of the next decade as part of a set of sweeping changes brought in by its new chief...
The governor of the Bank of England has called EU demands for City banks to comply with Brussels regulations unacceptable, in a combative speech backing the government’s hardline stance in the next round of Brexit talks. Andrew Bailey said the UK should...
The government is under mounting pressure to plug gaps in its emergency coronavirus wage subsidy schemes at the March budget to support millions of self-employed people and other workers excluded from furlough. MPs and campaign groups said the chancellor, Rishi Sunak,...
Hundreds of UK companies could switch operations to countries inside the EU in what is threatening to become a dramatic exodus of investment and jobs caused by Brexit. The Observer can reveal that by 1 January this year some 500 businesses – mostly...
