7 UK Shares To Buy Now With £5,000

Last Updated July 23rd 2021

7 Min Read

Our stock market analysts have been searching the market recently for strong prospects. Armed with a spare £5,000, these would be our top 7 UK shares to buy now.

Top 7 UK Shares To Buy Now

Rightmove (RMV)
Experian (EXPN)
LVMH (MC)
Ocado (OCDO)
Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA)
Games Workshop (GAW)
Kainos Group (KNOS)

1. Housing market giant: Rightmove (RMV)

With the UK rushing towards to long-anticipated full lockdown easing, analysts are eagerly debating which sectors are set to rebound furthest and fastest.

Few would bet against the already hot housing market slowing down anytime soon. Not only has the government’s stamp duty holiday turbo-charged a market that was slumbering for the long lockdown months, but other factors are at play too. The change to working lifestyle with more and more office workers leaving the city centres in favour of expansive home offices, Rightmove has seen a surge of demand.

This has carried the share price to peaks recently, and the gain the stock has displayed from the lows of the spring 2020 sell-off is spectacular. It is currently up about 42% and with more pent-up demand yet to release, the dominant online site which brings homebuyers together with sellers is surely set to see further gains over 2021 and even into 2020.

2. Credit-rating maestro: Experian (EXPN)

Credit rating agencies like Experian have also been on a good run of late which analysts expect to continue. The explosion of online activity and e-commerce, in particular, have meant their already substantial data troves have been further enlarged. Data has been called the oil of the 21st century, and companies that capture and analyse large amounts of it should be as profitable as the oil majors were last century. Experian have a great reputation within the industry, their marketing and brand image is slick, and they have avoided any of the scandals that have tarred other data companies over the past few years. As such, Experian is well worth a look today for the investor hunting for value and growth potential.

3. Luxury spending will come roaring back: LVMH (MC)

It is hard to overstate the miraculous success story that global luxury brands group LVMH is. A glimpse at the rocket powered growth of the share price over the last 5 years is enough to reassure investors that there is something very special going on in the French group. Basically, by bringing together many of the best of European and global luxury brands under one roof, enormous economies of scale have been achieved.

Coupled with the groups sure-footed expansion into the lucrative Asian market, and LVMH has been a huge growth success story for the European markets. Why buy now? Well, recent reports that the group is set to expand its stake in Tod’s, a luxury Italian shoemaker, have convinced market-watchers that the best is still yet to come. LVMH’s appetite for expansion is still there, as well as their eye for which luxury brands represent good opportunities for M&A growth.

4. UK tech superstar: Ocado (OCDO)

For as long as anyone can remember Ocado has been London’s main ‘concept’ stock. Whilst the US markets abound in small tech firms offering to shake up some aspect of daily life, but generating very limited or negative free cash flow, the UK and European markets have been harder places to find these potential growth star performers.

Ocado has by now proved the validity and viability of its concept – that online retail run from almost totally automated warehouses with no ‘bricks and mortar’ shops. Furthermore, the group has started to licence its world-beating technology around with world, with big deals with French and Japanese supermarkets in the pipeline.

Ocado could look over-valued, especially with a sky-high P/E ratio normally comfortable over 100. However, in combination with other safer options, Ocado represents a calculated risk many investors will feel is worth taking.

5. Oil major pivoting towards clean energy: Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA)

Many will be sceptical, but Shell has recently unveiled massively ambitious plans to put the fossil fuel giant at the front of the coming clean energy revolution. In fact, a full half of Shell’s energy output will be renewable within the next decade, as announced by CEO Ben van Beurden. If Shell can even get close to this target, they may well have a new lease of life making investors who turned sour on the stock think twice.

Whether or not this gamble pays off, there are other short-term factors giving support to the Shell share price. Recent price movements in the wholesale market have boosted profits, and the fact that the renewable sector is still unable to scale up to meet demand means large operators like Shell have an advantage of knowledge and scale.

Finally, Shell looks very cheap at the moment, and as a historically strong dividend payer will appeal to investors who just want to buy and gold over the long term as well as those speculating on growth in the coming years.

6. Games Workshop (GAW)

Games Workshop, best known for pioneering the renaissance of tabletop wargames, is also one to watch right now. It is one of the FTSE 250’s best-performing retailers, and has been for over 5 years now. This is no mean feat in an economy which has seen retails of all descriptions battered by the rise to dominance of e-commerce and then rolling series of lockdowns.

This has driven the share price to rise an eyewatering 2000% since 2016, and this runway train shows no signs of stopping. This increase in share price has been primarily driven by strong and consistent sales, as well as a robust dividend scheme. Games Workshop has been shielded from the worst of the pandemic by their hardcore fanbase, and the fact that they sit so dominant in the centre of this niche marketplace means the future looks bright for this UK traditional retail success story.

7. Kainos Group (KNOS)

To end this survey of tempting stocks to buy right now, Kainos Group. Kainos provides IT systems, consulting services and software development to both public and private sector actors in the UK and globally.

Kainos is a world leader in data analytics, again another sub-sector that has seen rising demand due to the past 12 months of disruption. Kainos can claim to have provided cutting-edge services to several large customers including Netflix, Diageo, AB Foods, and the NHS. All of these organisations have expanded their digital capabilities with Kainos’ help in response to the changing nature of consumer behaviour generated by the pandemic.

For the first 6 months of 2021, Kainos reported a healthy 23% growth in revenue and a 41% revenue growth for its subsidiary Workday, and analysts expect this grow to continue over the next year.