According to a survey by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), business and professional services companies in the UK experienced the largest fall in volume of work since August 2012. This sector is expected to cut investment at the fastest pace since 2010 over the “extremely negative” outlook for the upcoming year.

Brexit uncertainty remained the main driver for the fall in business investment throughout 2018, which has only registered a slight increase so far in 2019. The CBI’s findings were published after a survey of 129 companies between April 29 and May 14.

The silver lining is that although companies are cutting down on business investment, they remain optimistic about hiring more workers despite Brexit woes.