As a bumpy and uncertain 2025 disappears, businesses are beginning to look ahead to what the next 12 months may bring. So what can we expect to happen in 2026, and will it be as volatile as we’ve become used to in recent years? Here are some of my predictions.
In 2026, the long and often contentious experiment with hybrid working will finally settle into something more predictable. Although remote work will not disappear altogether, the balance of power will shift decisively back towards employers. Spending the majority of the week in the office will once again be the norm in many sectors. Attendance expectations will be clearer, exemptions fewer and informal arrangements harder to sustain.
Where performance is measurable, flexibility will survive – otherwise it will be the first thing to go. For employees at the start of their careers, hybrid working is likely to be more an aspiration than a reality, as companies place renewed emphasis on supervision, training and informal learning.
More proof, less potential
Artificial intelligence will also move into a more awkward phase. The focus will shift from whether it is potentially transformative to whether it demonstrably delivers financial benefits. Rather than pursue pilot projects or isolated efficiencies, boards will demand evidence that AI investments lead to sustained productivity gains, improved controls and higher profit margins.
The use of AI rather than graduates for entry-level work is likely to accelerate
If the heavy spending on AI does translate into measurable gains, the pressure to use those tools to reduce costs will intensify. 2025 produced anecdotal evidence of companies using AI rather than hiring graduates to perform entry-level tasks. That trend is likely to accelerate, particularly in sectors where a large annual intake has been the norm.
Regulation will remain a live issue, but the direction of travel may be less demanding than once expected. 2025 saw EU moves to row back on elements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Companies have spent several years preparing for these directives and highlighting the associated costs. Many businesses have already been removed from their scope, and further attempts to dilute the obligations are likely in the coming 12 months, particularly as pressure mounts on the EU to implement the recommendations of Mario Draghi’s report on EU competitiveness.
Mergers build
As I have argued for some time, consolidation among mid-tier practices is likely to gather pace over the coming year. The pressures driving this trend are structural rather than cyclical. Investment in technology continues to rise, regulatory demands remain complex, and competition for experienced staff is hotting up. For many firms, combining with a peer will increasingly look like a practical response to these challenges.
The release of pent-up strategic activity may drive major transactions
There is also the possibility that bigger transactions begin to re-emerge, following a period of elevated uncertainty that led many companies to defer major strategic moves. If conditions stabilise in 2026, some of that pent-up activity may come through in the form of large-scale acquisitions. Markets for new share listings could also begin to reopen, as equity market sentiment improves and investors show a renewed willingness to back well-run companies with credible business models.
Swing time
Politics, meanwhile, is likely to revert to a background factor rather than a single defining shock. In the US, attention will drift from the midterm elections towards early manoeuvring for the 2028 presidential race. It may limit the potential for harmful economic policies and may even lead to 2025’s tariffs being reformed.
Ireland will have to steer carefully through a more fractured geopolitical environment
In the UK, 2026 may feel like the year when economic constraints begin to bite more visibly, while local elections and the aftermath of the Scottish parliamentary contest will sharpen debates about public spending, taxation and devolved powers. Businesses will pay close attention to elections in Scotland and Wales, not so much because of constitutional implications but for what they reveal about the state of the Labour Party and the potential for Reform to make inroads and position itself for the national contest in 2029.
Ireland will have to steer carefully through a more fractured geopolitical environment, with the US at the core of this. An increasingly interventionist US economic policy and a more transactional approach to trade and its political relationships pose clear risks for a country deeply dependent on American investment. Preserving strong political links in Washington while quietly broadening other global alliances will be key for policymakers in Dublin. With Ireland due to take on the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2026 it will need to deepen ties with key European partners and play a more active role in shaping the bloc’s priorities.
