A survey of UK business leaders by finance company MarketInvoice has found that only 18% of leaders stated that access to EU workers was a priority, while just 7% saw the stability of sterling as key.

When looking at what was keeping UK business leaders awake at night, more than half (53%) of respondents were most concerned about the current uncertain economic environment, followed by the stability of the government (15%), foreign worker rights (8%) or a weak pound (1%).

Anil Stocker, CEO and co-founder of MarketInvoice, said: “Business leaders are clearly focused on ensuring they are prepared to do business before worrying about people issues.

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“Anecdotal feedback from this survey is that businesses in the UK are getting on with it, but are clearly unsettled, which doesn’t make for a healthy business environment.”

A majority of businesses leaders (54%) reported that their hiring plans had been largely unaffected in 2017.

More than a third (38%) of businesses felt that they would face a cash squeeze over the next six months.

To address this, 35% of them would turn to invoice finance, followed by bank overdrafts (30%), while only 6% would use a personal credit card.

Anil added: “While hiring concerns are relatively stable for business, they need to be focused on managing their working capital needs in H2 2017.”

Research showed that a third (34%) of businesses would abandon expansion plans, 33% would forgo launching new products, while a fifth (20%) would reduce marketing spend.

“These are things that will impact the wider economy and could make for tough decisions for business leaders.”