1st September 2026
There is an encouraging message in the latest investment figures for Scotland. There is also a question that should matter particularly to Caithness and Sutherland.
According to the latest EY Attractiveness Survey, Scotland remains the UK's leading destination for foreign direct investment outside London. It attracted 108 inward investment projects during 2025, giving Scotland 14.8% of all UK FDI projects. That was down from 135 projects in 2024, a fall of 20%, but Scotland still retained its position ahead of every other UK region outside London.
EY also found that investor confidence in Scotland is unusually strong. One third of businesses considering investment in the UK said they were considering Scotland, up from 27% the previous year. That is the highest level recorded in the survey.
So Scotland clearly has something investors want.
But when we move north, the picture becomes harder to measure.
EY does not publish its 108 Scottish projects at a level that allows us to say how many were in Caithness or Sutherland. It would therefore be wrong to claim that a particular local development was one of those 108 projects unless there is separate evidence confirming it.
That does not mean, however, that investment in the far north is insignificant.
Quite the opposite.
Look at what is happening around Dounreay and the Pentland Firth.
The Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm has secured a Contract for Difference and is progressing towards construction. The project is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs during construction and operation and is intended to help develop a Scottish supply chain for floating offshore wind.
Then there is the enormous expansion of electricity transmission infrastructure.
The Orkney Link includes major infrastructure at Dounreay West, connecting Orkney's renewable energy resources to the wider electricity network. Projects of this kind may not appear in an FDI survey in the same way as a foreign company establishing a new factory, but they are nevertheless essential investment in the economic infrastructure of the far north.
And that distinction is important.
Foreign direct investment is only one part of the investment economy.
A company from another country establishing a manufacturing operation in Caithness would be FDI. A major electricity transmission project funded through the regulated energy system is different. Government expenditure at Dounreay is different again. A Scottish company expanding an existing operation is different too.
Yet from the point of view of the local economy, all can create contracts, employment, skills, infrastructure and opportunities for local businesses.
This is why the far north should not judge its economic prospects simply by counting foreign companies arriving through the door.
Dounreay provides a good example.
The latest Nuclear Restoration Services socio-economic review shows that during 2024/25 Dounreay committed more than £972,000 in socio-economic grant funding. Including funding managed on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the total was more than £1.12 million. That funding helped leverage a further £6.1 million of public and private investment into Caithness and north Sutherland.
And Dounreay's economic importance is much greater than those figures alone.
The decommissioning programme supports local employment and a substantial supply chain. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority says its wider organisation supports around 5,000 supply-chain companies, while its total planned expenditure for 2025/26 is more than £4 billion across its sites and activities.
For Caithness and north Sutherland, the challenge is therefore not that there is no investment.
There is a great deal of it.
The more difficult question is how much of that investment creates a lasting economic base after the construction work has finished or the major projects have moved into their operational phase.
That is where the EY findings become particularly relevant.
Investors told EY that the availability and skills of the local workforce are increasingly important when deciding where to locate. Transport infrastructure is also becoming more important.
Those are precisely the issues which can determine whether Caithness and Sutherland capture the next generation of investment or simply watch major projects pass through.
A wind farm can be built offshore while much of the high-value engineering takes place elsewhere.
A transmission line can cross the region while the companies supplying the equipment are based hundreds of miles away.
A major construction project can create hundreds of jobs for several years and then leave a much smaller operational workforce.
That doesn't make the investment worthless. Far from it. But it does mean that the region needs to think beyond the headline value of projects.
The real prize is building a local industrial ecosystem around them.
That means companies capable of winning contracts. It means apprenticeships and technical training. It means workshops, yards and industrial land. It means reliable transport and digital connections. It means housing for workers. It means encouraging people who grew up here to build careers here rather than leaving for Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow or further afield.
And it means making sure that businesses in Wick, Thurso, Helmsdale, Lybster, Brora and the smaller communities are in a position to compete for work.
The opportunities are potentially enormous.
Floating offshore wind is still developing. The Pentland Firth remains one of Europe's most important renewable-energy locations. Dounreay's decommissioning programme has years of work ahead. Electricity transmission investment is expanding because Scotland is producing increasing amounts of renewable power. And the wider energy transition is creating demand for engineering, construction, maintenance, digital services and specialist skills.
But there is a danger in simply celebrating the investment announcements.
We have seen major announcements before.
The question should increasingly be: what stays here?
How many permanent jobs?
How many local companies win contracts?
How many apprentices are trained?
How many new businesses are created?
How much of the supply chain is actually based in Caithness and Sutherland?
And how much of the wealth generated by these enormous projects remains in the communities where the infrastructure is built?
Those questions become even more important because EY's wider UK research shows that Britain's investment is becoming increasingly concentrated. Greater London attracted 279 FDI projects in 2025, while Scotland's 108 made it the UK's second-best performing region.
Scotland therefore has a strong story to tell.
But within Scotland there is another geographical divide.
Edinburgh and Glasgow can attract international companies because they already have large populations, universities, financial services, transport connections and established business networks.
Caithness and Sutherland cannot compete on those terms.
We have to compete on something different.
We have extraordinary energy resources, a nuclear skills base, large areas of available land, a growing electricity network and a location that could become increasingly important as Britain moves towards a low-carbon energy system.
The question is whether we can turn those advantages into a broader local economy rather than a collection of large projects.
That may ultimately be a better measure of whether the investment boom is working.
Scotland is attracting the investment.
The far north is attracting investment too.
But the next question for Caithness and Sutherland is not simply how much money is being spent here?
It is how much lasting economic value are we managing to keep here?
That is the question local businesses, Highland Council, the Scottish Government and the developers themselves should be prepared to answer.