New regional head of R&D seeks to double revenue in three years Azets, the UK’s specialist business advisor to SMEs, has made a senior promotion and a strategic appointment as it seeks to expand its research and development (R&D) tax relief offering in the south.

The UK top 10 accountancy firm has also revealed ambitious growth targets of doubling R&D revenues by 2028 across the region, which includes London, Kent, the South Coast and Home Counties.

Tax Partner Heather Williams has been named regional Head of R&D. Heather, who has significant industry experience, joined Azets in 2020 and specialises in tax for owner managed businesses, with particular expertise in HMRC’s Patent Box scheme for innovative companies. Associate Director Emma Hussey, who has been recruited from Cooper Parry to head Azets’ R&D team in London, has both Top 20 experience and also a technical research background through work with AstraZeneca and the European Space Agency.

Regionally, Azets is positioning itself as a logical, affordable alternative between the Big 4 accountancy firms, where R&D work may clash with audit opportunities, and the boutique firms perhaps lacking enough specialist technical knowledge to successfully conclude complex claims.

The firm’s recruitment drive to strengthen its R&D teams is for both tax-trained staff and those from a technical background to cover all aspects of the team’s work. Azets is also continuing to grow organically through mergers and acquisitions and remains open to referrals, collaborations and partnership working.

Azets has a Northamptonshire office in Kettering. Heather said: “Businesses deserve benefit from their innovation. It is another way of funding creative growth. If Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to be growing the economy she has to be making access to these fantastic reliefs easier and more straightforward. “My job here is to grow the south R&D offering and we will do that by proving our work is of high standard, follows procedure to the nth degree and does an absolutely robust job, which in turn will help create a great professional and trusting relationship with HMRC. “My vision for the South is that we will double in size in three years.

For that we will need to attract new clients, invest in quality, experienced staff to augment our outstanding existing team – and show people what we can do, why we are different and how we will do a great job for all clients.” She added that that the R&D relief landscape had become increasingly complicated due to the merger of the two previous schemes, mandatory pre-registration legislation from 2024 and increased HMRC scrutiny of claims leading to eligibility nervousness among companies.

Emma, whose expertise spans R&D tax reliefs, the Patent Box regime, grant funding, and creative tax relief, said: “There is so much business support out there – it is our role to ensure our innovative clients have access “I am loving the chance to drive our growth in London by getting out to talk to clients, forming strategic partnerships and working with the different departments across Azets to investigate potential R&D opportunities.” Latest available figures from the ONS (Office for National Statistics) show that expenditure on R&D performed by UK businesses was £50 billion in 2023, an increase of £1.4 billion since 2022 (2.9%). London had the largest regional value of business R&D performed in 2023, at £11 billion (22.0%), followed by the East of England at £9.7 billion (19.5%) and the South East at £8.5 billion (16.9%).

The pharmaceuticals product group made the largest contribution of £8.7 billion (17.4% of the total) with scientific research and development the top industry at £12.7 billion (25.3%). The Patent Box is designed to encourage companies to keep and commercialise intellectual property in the UK. It allows companies to apply a lower rate of Corporation Tax to profits earned from its patented inventions.