UK Small Business Statistics

Business Population Estimates for the UK and Regions in 2018

Summary

There were 5.8 million small businesses at the start of 2019.
Compared with the previous year, the private sector business population increased 3.5% (+200,000 businesses).

At the start of 2019 there were 5.82 million small businesses (with 0 to 49 employees), 99.3% of the total business. SMEs account for 99.9% of the business population (5.9 million businesses).
SMEs account for three fifths of the employment and around half of turnover in the UK private sector.
Total employment in SMEs was 16.6 million (60% of the total), whilst turnover was estimated at £2.2 trillion (52%).

In 2019, there were estimated to be 5.9 million UK private sector businesses
1.4 million of these had employees and 4.5 million had no employees.
The UK private sector business population is made up of 3.5 million sole proprietorships (59% of the total), 2.0 million actively trading companies (34%) and 405,000 ordinary partnerships (7%) in 2019.
2.6 million private sector businesses as registered for VAT or PAYE, 45% of the estimated total population.

Between 2018 and 2019, the total business population grew by 200,000 (3.5%). Since 2000 there has been an overall increase of just over two-thirds.
Between 2000 and 2019 the business population increased by 2.4 million (+69%), with the highest rate of increase was +7% between 2003 and 2004, and between 2013 and 2014.
There was a decrease in the business population (for the first time in the series) between 2017 and 2018 of 27,000.

Nearly a fifth of all SMEs were operating in Construction, compared with less than 1% in the Mining, Quarrying and Utilities sector.
Wholesale and Retail Trade and Repair accounted for 14% of all SME employment and just over a third of SME turnover.
London (1.1 million) and the South East (940,000) had the most private sector businesses, accounting for 35% of the UK business population, while the North East had 152,000 private sector businesses, the least of any English region.