Foreign investment into the UK has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade, new government figures show — though Wales still secured 75 projects and more than 1,600 jobs.
The Department for Business and Trade reported 1,020 foreign direct investment projects landing across the UK in 2025-26, down 25.8% on the year before.
It is the lowest annual total in the five years the department published, and campaigners say the lowest in over a decade.
Of those projects, 75 came to Wales, creating 1,617 jobs, according to the department’s regional breakdown.
The Wales Office put the total higher, saying foreign investment had created or protected more than 5,500 jobs in Wales over the year.
The 75 projects placed Wales above Northern Ireland and the North East for project numbers, though below Scotland’s 94 and well behind London’s 326.
The Secretary of State for Wales, Jo Stevens, framed the figures as a success, saying Wales was “punching above its weight.”
She said the UK Government was backing the industries of the future and creating the right conditions to attract more investment.
The Wales Office said this was the second year running that investment and jobs in Wales had risen, although the published national statistics do not include a year-by-year regional breakdown to confirm the trend.
It pointed to UK Government backing for two AI Growth Zones, investment zones for north and south Wales, and the Anglesey and Celtic Freeports, supported by more than £380m of funding.
A recently signed Defence Growth Deal for Wales, backed by a further £50m, was also cementing the country as a leader in autonomous defence technology, the Wales Office said.
Several of those schemes touch the Swansea Bay area, including the south Wales investment zone and the Celtic Freeport covering Port Talbot and Milford Haven.
But the national picture drew a sharp warning from the National Centre for Universities and Business, which represents universities and industry.
Its chief executive, Dr Joe Marshall, called the scale of the decline “deeply concerning,” pointing to a 54% fall in project numbers over the past decade.
He said headline job numbers holding up should not offer false reassurance, with the steepest drops hitting sectors critical to future growth, such as advanced engineering and life sciences.
A smaller pipeline of investors left the UK more exposed, he said, and the next Prime Minister would need to move quickly to give globally mobile investors the confidence to choose the UK.
The figures land as the new Welsh Government weighs how Wales attracts investment in the first place.
Reviving the Welsh Development Agency, the economic body abolished in 2006, was the centrepiece of Plaid Cymru’s economic plan before it took power in May, and First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth has said the new body’s remit will be set out within his government’s first 100 days.
Supporters credit the original agency with putting Wales on the map for global investors, and blame its loss for the country’s reduced visibility since — an argument a year of falling UK investment is likely to sharpen.
Swansea has a direct stake in where any revived agency lands. Council leader Rob Stewart has said he will press for a new WDA, or part of it, to be based in the city centre, where he argues it would do more economic good than an out-of-town site.
There is an irony in that: the Welsh Government’s offices at Penllergaer, near junction 47 of the M4, were originally built for the old WDA and never fully reoccupied after it closed — and their future is itself now caught up in a stalled deal to move staff into Swansea city centre.
Across the UK, new jobs created through foreign investment held broadly steady at 69,166, down just 0.3%, while the number of existing jobs safeguarded rose by 61% to 16,407.
