Toast Report Reveals UK Hospitality Predictions For 2026

The UK hospitality sector is heading into 2026 with the familiar contradiction: cautious operators with ambitious plans.

Last year saw inflationary pressure filtering through supplier pricing and energy bills, with policy shifts affecting staffing, leaving restaurant owners focused on the fundamentals: protecting profit margins, keeping teams stable and delivering a quality dining experience.

Toast’s UK Restaurant Industry Predictions 2026 report, in partnership with Expert Market, captures what’s top-of-mind for operators, with a blind survey of 400 UK restaurant owners. This year’s findings explore the biggest pressures businesses expect to face in 2026, where owners plan to focus operationally, and how technology, from online ordering to AI and automation, is shaping the year ahead.

The headline is a mood of resilience mixed with realism. The majority of owners expect moderate to significant growth in 2026, while one in two point at rising ingredient and energy costs as the biggest challenge.

Operators are responding by tightening execution and leaning harder into technology, particularly AI, automation and online ordering, while keeping staffing and sustainability firmly on the agenda.

1. Uncertain Economic Conditions Will Demand Focus

After a turbulent 2025, UK restaurant owners are approaching 2026 with optimism, albeit tempered by economic concern. More than 50% of owners in Toast’s survey say rising ingredient and energy costs will be the biggest challenge restaurants face in 2026.

Even so, growth expectations remain strong. Just over 70% of UK restaurant owners told us that they expect moderate to significant growth for their business in 2026, suggesting that many operators are planning to push forward, but with tighter financial discipline.

When asked which factor would have the biggest impact on the restaurant industry in 2026, “economic conditions” was the most common response, cited by over 30% of respondents. A further 18% also called out “increasing costs and inflation” as a major predicted challenge over the next year.

2. The Customer Experience Can and Will Be Elevated

In challenging economic circumstances, value and service will remain crucial differentiators for consumers with plenty of choice. For the UK restaurant owners we surveyed, 2026 is a year to raise the bar on how dining out feels, not just what’s on customers’ plates.

When asked which area of restaurant management they’ll be focusing on in 2026, 31% said improving the customer experience, while 21% plan to improve speed and efficiency at their restaurant. In other words, there’s a practical ambition to make service feel better and for operations to run smoother while you’re at it.

Boosting customer satisfaction can take many other forms, though, from getting atmosphere and hospitality right, and delivering consistent, personalised service, to using EPOS technology that makes ordering and payment seamless. Ultimately, when customers’ budgets are tight, they need to feel a clear return on price.

3. AI and Automation Will Be at the Top Table

Technology adoption is no longer a niche conversation in hospitality. In Toast’s survey, 80% of UK restaurant owners said they feel at least “somewhat ready” to adopt new technologies and many see AI as a core part of how restaurants will run in 2026.

Artificial intelligence is already being used to speed up everyday work, from tracking sales and inventory to supporting marketing tasks.

But when we asked owners to make bold predictions about 2026, the number of responses centred on deeper AI and automation was striking, including ideas like more automated ordering, AI-driven personalisation and increasingly system-led operations.

As the number of useful applications continues to grow, so does the excitement around them, with many owners positioning 2026 as a year where AI moves to an operationally meaningful state.

Expert Market’s View: Practical Recommendations for UK Restaurants in 2026

Toast’s survey points to a specific 2026 playbook for UK operators: plan for cost pressure, compete harder on guest experience, invest in technology (especially online ordering and EPOS), prepare for more AI in day-to-day decision-making, keep staffing challenges front-of-mind and turn sustainability into standard practice.

Below are practical recommendations aligned to those six predictions, focused on what owners can implement this year.

Use EPOS as the operational backbone for cost control,  customer experience, and channel management

With rising ingredient and energy costs named as the biggest challenge for 2026 by over half of respondents, restaurants need tighter visibility over what’s selling, what’s profitable and where costs are creeping in.

In other words, operators need a close grip on controllable levers. A top EPOS system for restaurants (or food and beverage businesses such as takeaways and pubs/bars) should provide a reliable view of performance across menus, shifts and channels.

We’d argue the practical priority here is consistency, so that every sale flows through EPOS cleanly, keeps products and modifiers structured, and regularly reviews reporting so you can spot issues early (for example, margin drag from certain dishes, frequent refunds/voids or inconsistent discounting).

This can create the foundations for better decisions across pricing, purchasing, staffing and service.

Compete on guest experience by removing friction (especially around ordering and payment)

With owners focusing on customer experience and prioritising speed and efficiency, value will be found in how smooth and memorable that experience feels.

Therefore, focusing improvements on the moments customers notice most, such as how quickly they can order, how easy it is to pay and how reliably (and above all, how pleasantly) the service runs, especially at peak times.

Again, EPOS-supported ordering and payment flows can help here to reduce queues, cut errors and give staff more time to host rather than firefight.

Treat off-premise as a core revenue stream, but design it to protect quality and margin

The report’s findings also make off-premise dining a non-negotiable for revenue generation in 2026 and online ordering/delivery platforms are likely to be crucial to that formula (especially if your business is located in a city).

Our operational recommendation is to make off-premise repeatable. Keep packaging designed for travel, set clear prep and handoff processes, build clear menus, both physically and online, and use EPOS-connected ordering to reduce manual errors and keep reporting consistent across dine-in and delivery.

Use AI and automation for practical wins first (forecasting, insights and faster decisions)

AI and automation in 2026 is another area to focus on and we think the opportunities will be found in “boring” use cases that save time and improve decision-making.

The simplest early wins are tools that help you understand performance faster, such as identifying what’s driving sales changes, spotting unusual patterns and supporting planning (for example, demand forecasting or quicker analysis of what’s working).

Plan for staffing constraints by reducing churn and shortening training

Labour remains a defining constraint for many hospitality businesses, with shortages and staffing challenges expected across 2026, according to Toast’s report. In practice, we’d say that to prepare, you need to build stability through retention.

Things that will help in this regard are clearer career development, competitive pay and benefits such as flexible working. Operationally, prioritise training that gets new hires confident quickly and systems that reduce avoidable stress in busy services (clear roles, predictable processes and fewer “workarounds”).

Make sustainability measurable

It appears sustainability is moving into the centre of operations for many businesses in the UK for 2026.

The practical move then is to translate sustainability into routines that help reduce food waste, shorten supply chains where possible and build seasonal menus that are easier to execute consistently. If you communicate sustainability publicly, keep it specific (what you’re changing and why) so the story stays credible and connected to real guest value.

Methodology

The methodology was designed to capture UK restaurant owners’ predictions for 2026, covering the pressures, priorities, and technology trends shaping hospitality decision-making.

• Population and sample size: Toast collected 400 qualified responses from UK restaurant owners.
• Data collection: The research was conducted as a blind survey using the Pollfish platform, fielded from 31 October 2025 to 7 November 2025. Respondents were not made aware that Toast was fielding the study.
• Data notes: Percentages may not equal 100% due to rounding.