According to my financial data provider, there are about 60 UK stocks tipped to double or more over the next year or so. This is based on analysts’ average share price targets.
Now analysts’ forecasts need to be taken with a grain of salt – there are a lot of duds among the 60 shares that realistically have little chance of doubling (or even doing well). But what I thought I’d do is filter the list of stocks for those that have relatively strong momentum (both price momentum and earnings momentum) to identify some potential winners.
A UK defence stock that isn’t on mainstream radars
After this filter, one stock that immediately jumped out at me was Kromek Group (LSE: KMK). It develops radiation detection solutions for a range of markets including security and defence, civil nuclear, and biological detection.
The company’s exposure to defence is what excites me here. The defence industry’s booming right now and I can see Kromek benefitting from increased government spending in the years ahead as radiation detection is vital for the safety of both civilians and soldiers.
Note that last year, the company won a £1.7m contract from the UK government. This was for the procurement of radiological nuclear detection equipment and supporting services for the Home Office.
Looking at Kromek’s financials, revenues are on the up. For the year ending 30 April, revenue’s expected to be £27.1m versus £10.4m five years earlier.
That said, the company’s only recently become profitable and, as a result, its price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio’s quite high. So a doubling of the share price in 2026 is far from guaranteed.
One other thing worth pointing out is that recent growth here has been driven by a large contract win with Siemens Healthineers. There’s a risk that in the near term, growth moderates due to a lack of large deals like this.
I think this stock is worth a closer look however. The average price target is 26p versus today’s share price of 10p.
A deep-value opportunity in the small-cap space
Another stock that looks interesting to me is Water Intelligence (LSE: WATR). It provides tech-driven leak detection solutions for residential, commercial and municipal customers and is therefore a play on the sustainability theme.
This stock’s currently trading near 315p. However, the average price target is about 678p (115% higher).
Looking at Water Intelligence’s most recent trading update, the company has quite a bit of momentum right now. For the third quarter of 2025, revenue increased 11% year on year to $24.3m while adjusted pre-tax profit was up 68% to $2.8m.
“We had a strong Q3 in terms of both revenue and profits which builds upon the momentum from Q2.”
Water Intelligence executive chairman Dr Patrick DeSouza
This momentum isn’t reflected in the valuation though. Currently, the stock trades on a P/E ratio of just nine, so there’s scope for a materially-upward valuation re-rating here.
A risk with this stock is debt. In recent years, the company has made a number of acquisitions and this has weakened its balance sheet.
At the current valuation however, the risk/reward set-up looks attractive, in my view. I think this small-cap stock’s worthy of further research.
