The Q1 2014 CFO survey found that 71% of say now is a good time to take greater risk onto their balance sheets, one of the largest quarter-on-quarter rises on record and double the level of a year ago.

The majority (95%) of CFOs said that prospects for economic activity in the UK have improved over the last six months, 70% said that the outlook in the US has improved and 54% believed prospects in the eurozone have improved.

CFO worries about economic risk have declined substantially over the past year. Half (52%) now say the level of economic and financial uncertainty facing their business is above normal, high or very high, down from three quarters (77%) in Q1 2013.

The majority (81%) of CFOs expect UK corporates to increase hiring in the next 12 months, 80% expect increases in capital expenditure while a third (36%) predict a rise in discretionary spending. Deloitte says these are the highest levels since 2011, while a record 95% of CFOs expect M&A activity to rise over the next year.

There were similar improvements in confidence about expansion, with 31% of CFOs more optimistic about their company’s financial prospects than three months ago. In a sharp turnaround only 2% of respondents said that their corporate balance sheets were overleveraged, compared with 63% in Q1 2009, reflecting the impact of the cheap money ploughed into the system from the quantitative easing (QE) programme since the crash in 2008.

Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, said: ‘CFOs increasingly see growth here in the UK, and established markets such as the US and euro area, as the key drivers of their corporate investment plans. Strong risk appetite, along with positive readings on hiring and capital spending, supports the view that a surge in corporate spending will become a major driver of the UK recovery.’

The survey respondents were made up of 126 CFOs, including 27 FTSE 100 and 45 FTSE 250 companies.