We have a short but important article for you today on the structure of UK industry. An article in the Financial Times gives us the latest figures on how many companies there are in the UK. Here are two important facts you will learn:
1. There are over 4 million enterprises in the UK
2. Only 6,000 of them employ more then 250 people.
That last bullet is worth repeating – only 6,000 of them employ more than 250.
The reality is that we are a country of small businesses. There are literally millions of them, mostly run by sole proprietors. Because there are so many of these small and medium enterprises (SMEs), they play a huge role in our economy. In fact, they are a major driver of it as they are responsible for reacting quickly and introducing new products. They account for the output of over £1 billion of products and services per annum.
We hope that you agree that these are vitally important facts for business to business marketers
Record number of businesses due to sole trader rise By Jonathan Moules Financial Times 1st September 2006
Growth in the number of sole traders helped to push up the number of businesses in the UK to a record high, according to official figures.
There were an estimated 4.3m enterprises at the start of 2005, an increase of 59,000, or 1.4 per cent, on a year earlier. This was the eighth successive annual increase.
The statistics, published yesterday by the Department of Trade and Industry’s Small Business Service, showed that 3.2m enterprises had no employees, or 72.8 per cent of the total.
The number of sole proprietorships increased for the third successive year, while the number of partnerships fell by 24,000, or 4.4 per cent, to 520,000.
Small and medium-sized enterprises, defined as those with fewer than 250 workers, now account for 58.7 per cent of the employment and 51.1 per cent, or £890bn, of turnover in the UK.
Only 6,000 businesses, or 0.1 per cent, employ more than 250 people, but they account for 41.3 per cent of private sector employment.
Simon Briault, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “It is encouraging that there is more entrepreneurship going on in the UK. The worrying trend is that businesses, once they have started up, are finding it difficult to expand.”
Victoria Carson, campaigns manager for the Forum of Private Business, which represents 25,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, said red tape continued to stunt business growth.
“We continue to see legislation that effectively taxes firms for taking on extra staff,” she said.
“Increases in the minimum wage have continued at an unsustainable rate, and the government is about to burden them still further with its national pensions saving scheme. Whilst larger firms can absorb these tariffs on employment, it is the smaller businesses that feel the pinch, as these figures show.”
Margaret Hodge, small business minister, welcomed the increase in overall business numbers.
She said: “We are continuing our drive to cut red tape, provide top quality support and are encouraging even more people with great business ideas to take the plunge and start their own business too.”
That last bullet is worth repeating – only 6,000 of them employ more than 250.
The reality is that we are a country of small businesses. There are literally millions of them, mostly run by sole proprietors. Because there are so many of these small and medium enterprises (SMEs), they play a huge role in our economy. In fact, they are a major driver of it as they are responsible for reacting quickly and introducing new products. They account for the output of over £1 billion of products and services per annum.
We hope that you agree that these are vitally important facts for business to business marketers. To make the most out of this information, it may interest you that there is a white paper available on our company website entitiled “Small & Medium Enterprises Equal Big Opportunities”
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on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 9:00 am and is filed under Articles, Industry News, SMEs.
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