Yorkshire wealth creators must develop ‘liquidity, longevity and legacy’: Debjani Raffan
Yorkshire heads into 2026 with something many regions would envy – momentum.
When it comes to enterprise and entrepreneurship, since 2015, employment in Hull and East Yorkshire’s creative and digital sector has risen by 38%. That makes it the fastest-growing sector by percentage and supports an ecosystem of digital roles across the wider region. Leeds, meanwhile, has cemented its status as a northern hub for financial services. The city is increasingly seen as a national driver of growth and innovation, while the wider West Yorkshire region now hosts more than 18,000business, financial and professional services firms.
This matters for those in the region looking to protect and grow their wealth, because Yorkshire’s success story is often written in the stories of businesses, not just individual portfolios. The region’s hardworking heritage means that entrepreneurs here often find the balance sheet of their life dominated by a single asset – the enterprise they have built.
Meanwhile, the breadth of longstanding family businesses in the region mean that many could be set to receive shares in a family company, a stake in a professional partnership, a farm, or property in the near future. We are in the midst of what has been dubbed The Great Wealth Transfer, and it’s set to be one of history’s largest, multi-generational inheritance waves.
This is why the ‘escape velocity’, the title of UBS Global Wealth Management’s Year Ahead 2026 report, offers a useful framing for the months to come, posing the question of whether innovation can provide from familiar economic drags and what it will take to navigate that transition.
This latest report uncovers the defining forces in markets and investment flows of the past year, along with the risks and opportunities of the year ahead.
For Yorkshire business owners, the practical takeaway is to look long term – whether that’s in relation to your business or individual investment portfolio, and diversify, mitigating risk by avoiding dependence on any one single theme, sector, or liquidity event.
For wealth creators and generators in Yorkshire, that may translate into reducing overreliance on what you already have in abundance and building greater resilience.
In my view, the opportunity for wealth creators in Yorkshire is to develop liquidity, longevity and legacy for their own wealth, while preparing the next generation to steward it responsibly, supporting entrepreneurial ambition, and putting clear family decision-making in place before the pressure of an unexpected event forces it. New year’s resolutions can be easy to dismiss, but a simple 2026 checklist is not: know what you own, what it depends on, and how it passes on.
That is how momentum becomes staying power. For families, for founders, and for the region that sustains them.
Debjani Raffan is Regional Head for Scotland, Northern Ireland, North East, and Yorkshire at UBS Global Wealth Management.