The quarter in UK lower-mid-market debt.
A standing read of the UK lower-mid-market debt cycle, taken one period at a time. Each edition sets down what the deal data, the lender share and CFO sentiment were doing at the time, so the arc of the cycle can be read straight through, from the 2020 trough to where the market stands now.
What this monitor tracks
Three things, edition to edition: mid-market deal flow, the share of that flow taken by the different kinds of lender, and what finance directors report about credit availability. Read together they separate the two questions a borrower has: how much capital is on offer, and how the market feels about lending it.
The figures are drawn from public sources: the Deloitte Alternative Lender Deal Tracker for European mid-market private-debt volumes, the Deloitte CFO Survey for sentiment, and market commentary from the mainstream and challenger banks. Each edition names its own sources inline and dates itself to the period the data covers, not to when it was written.
The cadence is periodic rather than fixed: an edition appears when a full quarter or year of data closes and there is a real turn in the cycle to record. The archive below is dated to the data; the editions are listed oldest first.
The shape of the cycle
One line, read straight down: what finance directors have reported about credit availability, quarter by quarter. It sits net-hard through 2023, recovers across 2024, then breaks sharply in the second quarter of 2025.
Credit-availability net balance · Q1 2023–Q2 2025
Net % of UK finance directors rating new credit easy to obtain minus those rating it hard. Hard figures from the Deloitte UK CFO Survey regular-questions dataset (UKCFOACCR back-series); the Q2 2025 break to −49 is the sharpest single-quarter fall over this window.
The editions — oldest first
- 20 Feb 2020
The lender field was already plural by 2020
Where £3–15m borrowers stood as the decade opened: direct lenders had built a near-2,000-deal European book with the UK its largest market, more than half of finance-seeking SMEs already went beyond the big-five banks, and Bank Rate sat at 0.75%.
- 22 Oct 2020
Deal flow at the Covid trough
Mid-market private-debt activity dipped but did not seize. Lenders that pulled back on new deals stayed open to existing borrowers, and the buyout share of the book actually rose.
- 28 Jan 2021
Cheap credit, reluctant borrowers
Through the pandemic, CFOs rated credit cheap and broadly available. The sentiment data is a large-cap proxy, but the direction of travel set the tone every lower-mid-market borrower negotiated against.
- 4 Nov 2021
The 2021 record run
Post-Covid deal flow rebounded to records. Alternative-lender deal counts and European unitranche volumes both hit highs, and the buyout share held above 70%. The lesson of a hot market is what you negotiate while it lasts.
- 25 Nov 2022
Deal flow held through the rate shock
Despite the fastest rate cycle in a generation, private-debt deal flow reached 871 trailing deals by autumn 2022, up 51% on the Autumn 2021 edition. The tracker itself rebranded, reflecting an asset class that had earned its place in the market.
- 18 Aug 2023
The 2023 trough and the rebound off it
European mid-cap unitranche deal flow hit its lowest quarter of the cycle in Q2 2023 at just 62 deals. The trough is now identifiable, and early signals point to recovery. A borrower in a quiet market commands better terms than the same borrower in a hot one.
- 16 May 2024
The 2024 recovery, confirmed
Deal flow re-accelerated into 2024. UK mid-cap transactions rose around 18% year on year in Q1, debt funds re-extended their lead to 77% of UK activity, and the H2 2023 rebound from the trough has carried through into the new year.
- 21 Nov 2024
The year the recovery stuck
A full-year read on a recovering market. Private-debt deal counts climbed back toward cycle highs, debt funds held a commanding share of UK mid-cap finance, and the deal book tilted back toward LBOs and bolt-ons after a bruising 2023.
- 17 Jul 2025
The tariff shock and the sentiment break
A sharp swing in CFO sentiment in Q2 2025 marked the largest single-quarter credit-availability deterioration of the window. The deal data held up even as the mood soured, exposing the gap between sentiment and supply.
- 5 Mar 2026
The strongest unitranche year since 2021
European mid-cap unitranche closed 2025 at 570 deals, and the UK led the year-end surge. Debt funds kept their hold on the key jurisdictions.
- 22 Apr 2026
Supply and sentiment are out of phase
A six-year view from the desk. The lower-mid-market borrower of mid-2026 faces a deeper and more competitive field of capital than at any point since 2020, even as the maturity wall crests and CFO sentiment stays defensive.
For the rest of the desk’s work, see all insights; for the shape of the market itself, the map of the market; and for the refinancing wall counted from the register, the typeset report.