Sam Stephens
Director
It’s that time of year again – HMRC have released their yearly R&D Tax Credit report, detailing the breakdown of the most recent years claims!
Over £35 billion has been spent by businesses all over the UK and identified as being eligible R&D expenditure for claiming R&D Tax Credits. This has resulted in over £5.3 million being paid out to the 57,335 businesses that have made a R&D Tax claim for financial year 2018-19; with the total value estimated to rise to £6.3 billion once all claims have been processed.
Let’s look at a breakdown of both the SME Scheme and RDEC Scheme statistics, looking at how many claims have been made, how much has been claimed and by which industry sectors!
59,265 claims have been made for Financial Year 2018-19 so far; 52,160 of those were made by SME’s into the SME Scheme, 3,310 were made by large companies into the RDEC Scheme, with an additional 3,790 SME claims made a via the RDEC Scheme.
The total amount of claims is due to rise as more claims are made during the 2-year retrospective claim period. In previous years, the number of claims has increased by 17%-20%, meaning the total claims for financial year 2018-19 could be around 70,000!
The £5.3 billion of R&D Tax benefit received is split between the same 3 categories:
Within the current statistics, the average claim for a SME Scheme claim is £57,000 – reflecting a similar average from the previous year.
Large enterprises claiming RDEC benefited £632,000 on average, while SME’s claiming under the RDEC scheme received £68,000.
The statistics show that there are 3 industry sectors that have made 67% of the R&D Tax Credit claims for 2018-19:
By claim value, these 3 industries have also claimed a huge 71% of the £5.3 billion tax relief.
Following the top 3, the next 4 largest claimant sectors are:
We’re thrilled to see that so many UK businesses, across a variety of sectors, are recognising the benefit of claiming R&D Tax Credits for the R&D they’ve performed and making the most of both schemes available.
We’re especially excited about the news that 10,200 of the businesses that have claimed for 2018-19 are new claimants, that’s 17.8% of all businesses that claimed!
As with previous years, the number of new claimants is expected to grow as more claims are made. It’s anticipated that the total will reflect the growth from previous years.
With an increasing number of businesses claiming R&D Tax Relief, year-on-year, which is expected to continue, now is the perfect time to check whether your company is also eligible to make a claim.
You can check how much your claim could be worth, by using our online R&D Tax Credit Calculator!
Alternatively, you can get in touch with us here, or using the form below.
HMRC has launched two open consultations as of March 2025 that could significantly impact tax advisers and businesses claiming R&D tax relief. One aims to strengthen enforcement against non-compliant tax advisers, while the other looks to improve the underused Advance Assurance scheme for R&D tax relief. These developments follow last year's broader "Raising Standards" consultation, which is still in progress.
Thinking about claiming tax relief for your video game project? If you're developing games in the UK, it’s important to understand the two available support schemes, Video Game Tax Relief (VGTR) and the newer Video Games Expenditure Credit (VGEC). Each comes with its own rules, benefits, and eligibility criteria, and the choice between them can have a real impact on your claim.
Assists organisations in accessing research and development grant funding across a range of UK and EU schemes and industry sectors.
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