Business statistics

The excel sheet attached to this briefing paper provides business numbers by Parliamentary constituency, including by size and industry.

Businesses over time

There were 5.5 million private sector businesses in the UK as of 1 January 2024, a decrease of 1.0% from 2023. The total business population is 8.0% lower than January 2020 levels.

Over the longer term, since 2000, the total business population has increased by 59%. This growth, and the decline in the business population since 2020, has been driven by small businesses with no employees, the largest category of UK businesses.

The charts below show the change in the number of businesses since 2000 and the proportion of businesses, jobs and turnover, broken down by business size.

^{Source: DBT, Business population estimates 2024.} 

Businesses by size

There were 5.5 million small or medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in the UK in 2024, representing over 99% of the business population. SMEs are businesses with fewer than 250 employees, including sole traders. SMEs accounted for 60% of UK employment and 48% of business turnover.

There were around 8,000 large businesses (with 250 or more employees) in January 2024. While representing just 0.2% of the business population, these businesses support 40% of jobs and nearly half of all turnover (excluding the financial services sector).

Businesses by location

London has the highest number of businesses of any region or country in the UK, including on a per-person basis.

There were around 983,000 businesses in London in January 2024, equal to 1,370 businesses per 10,000 resident adults. London and the South East of England combined accounted for just over a third of UK businesses. In the UK overall there were 996 businesses per 10,000 resident adults.

The Excel sheet attached to this briefing paper provides business numbers by Parliamentary constituency, including by size and industry.

Businesses by sector

Service industries accounted for 76% of businesses, 80% of employment and 73% of turnover (excluding the financial services sector). The retail industry accounted for 34% of business turnover, but only 10% of the businesses population. The manufacturing sector accounted for 5% of businesses, 9% of employment and 13% of turnover.

Business openings and closures

2022 was the first year since 2009 and 2010 that had a higher rate of business closures (11.8%) than new businesses openings (11.5%). There were 337,000 new businesses opened in 2022, down 27,000 on the previous year. There were 345,000 business closures in 2022, around 18,000 more than 2021.

The transport and storage sector had the highest proportion of business openings and business closures.

Women in business

Of the UK’s small and medium-sized enterprises with employees, 15% were led by women in 2023, according to data from the government’s annual Small Business Survey.

A higher proportion of women lead new businesses. Nearly half of all early-stage entrepreneurs in the UK were women (47%) in 2023, up from around 1 in 3 in 2018 (33%), according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey. In 2022, just over 20% of all new companies were all-female led, up from 17% in 2018, according to analysis in the 2023 Rose Review Progress Report (a government-commissioned review on female entrepreneurship).

Looking to senior business leaders, in January 2024, and around half of all new FTSE 100 board appointments were women (47%). The FTSE 100 lists the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange by value.

Ethnicity of business leaders

There is no comprehensive data on the ethnicity of UK business owners and leaders. 

The ONS has estimated that in 2021 around 12% of UK self-employed business owners identified as being from a minority ethnic group. Of these, business owners were most likely to be from Indian (3.4% of business owners) or Black (2.1%) ethnic groups.

Of the UK’s small and medium-sized enterprises with employees, 7% were led by people from a minority ethnic group in 2023, according to data from the government’s annual Small Business Survey. This proportion has been roughly the same each year since 2015.

96% of FTSE 100 companies and 60% of FTSE 250 companies had at least one director from a minority ethnic background as of December 2022, representing 18% and 11% of all available director posts, respectively. There are relatively few people from minority ethnic groups in Chair and executive director roles (for example, CEO and CFO). There were 31 executive directors from minority ethnic backgrounds in the FTSE 100 and 34 in the FTSE 250.

The British Business Bank in 2020 found that 4.4% of the UK’s entrepreneurs were Black, 5.9% were from Asian or other minority-ethnic groups and 89.9% were White. The Bank found that even after controlling for factors such as education, income, sector and working patterns, there were systemic disadvantages faced by entrepreneurs who come from minority ethnic backgrounds and who are female.