SOSE Backs Nearly 2,300 Organisations in Record Year, £18.3m Committed to South of Scotland

South of Scotland Enterprise has just posted its strongest year on record, supporting more businesses and communities than at any point in its history. For Scottish SMEs watching where public money flows, this is a signal worth reading.

South of Scotland Enterprise committed £18.3 million to projects across the region in 2025/26, supporting almost 2,300 organisations in the process. Both figures are the highest the agency has recorded since it was established in 2020, and they come at a moment when economic confidence across the South of Scotland is, by most available measures, genuinely improving.

SOSE was created specifically to address the structural economic gap between Scotland's central belt and its southern regions, covering Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. Unlike Scottish Enterprise, which focuses primarily on growth businesses, SOSE has a broader remit: it works with community organisations, social enterprises, and rural businesses that would struggle to fit neatly into a standard economic development model. That breadth is reflected in the 2,300 figure, which spans everything from sole traders to anchor community institutions.

The Scottish Government's economic development framework explicitly positions agencies like SOSE and Highlands and Islands Enterprise as counterweights to geographic inequality. According to the Scottish Government's National Performance Framework, reducing regional economic disparity is a stated priority, and SOSE's record year suggests the model is delivering returns. The agency's focus on place-based investment, backing projects that keep money circulating locally rather than extracting it, is increasingly recognised as a credible alternative to the trickle-down assumptions that have shaped UK regional policy for decades.

Research from the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde has consistently shown that rural and peripheral Scottish economies respond well to targeted public investment when it is channelled through bodies with genuine local knowledge. SOSE's structure, a small agency with deep regional roots rather than a distant national bureaucracy, fits that prescription. The record support numbers suggest the approach is scaling without losing its focus.

For businesses outside the South of Scotland, including those in Edinburgh, the SOSE story is a useful reference point. It demonstrates what is available when founders and operators engage directly with Scotland's enterprise infrastructure rather than assuming public funding is either inaccessible or not worth the paperwork. Scottish Enterprise, Business Gateway, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise are running equivalent programmes across the country, and the lesson from SOSE's record year is straightforward: the money is there, the mandate is clear, and the agencies are actively looking for organisations to back.

What this means for you: If you are running a business in Edinburgh or anywhere in Scotland and have not spoken to your local Business Gateway or Scottish Enterprise contact in the past 12 months, this is your prompt to do it. SOSE's record year is evidence that Scotland's enterprise agencies are fully operational and motivated to commit funding. Check what is live at Scottish Enterprise (scottishenterprise.com) and Business Gateway (bgateway.com), grant windows open and close quickly, and the organisations that benefit are almost always the ones who showed up early.