Made Redundant? Why 2026 Could Be the Best Thing That Happened to You

Redundancy is one of the most disorienting professional experiences - the abrupt removal of structure, identity and income that most people in employment have not had to navigate before. The immediate emotional reality is genuinely difficult, and it would be patronising to dismiss that. But redundancy also removes something that most employed people do not recognise as a constraint until it is gone: the inertia of a job that was not going anywhere.

For many people, redundancy in 2026 is the catalyst for a commercial move that their employment circumstances would never have generated voluntarily. This article is for those people.

Why 2026 is an Unusually Good Time to Be Made Redundant

Three factors combine to make 2026 a historically unusual time to be forced out of employment into self-employment. First, the AI territory partnership model provides a proven, supported route to recurring income that did not exist five years ago. Second, the market for AI services among UK SMEs is large, growing and largely untouched - you are not entering a saturated market. Third, the support structures available through programmes like AI Agency Boxed mean you are not navigating this alone.

The Redundancy Payment as Startup Capital

For people who have been employed for several years, a redundancy payment often provides a financial buffer that removes the immediate income pressure that is otherwise the biggest constraint in the first months of business building. Partners who can focus full-time on territory development in months one to six, without the distraction of financial emergency, build client bases faster and more consistently than those building alongside employment. The redundancy payment, used as startup capital rather than spent on maintaining the previous lifestyle, is a genuine commercial asset.