I feel significant admiration for people that have the courage to follow their dreams. Maybe it is because I haven’t had the bravery of following mine. I always looked for an excuse to shut up the entrepreneur inside me. I think it is worse when you are older, you avoid risky situations because you are afraid of failure. The possibility of losing what that you have achieved scares you; money, reputation, a stable job, a steady income, and even self-esteem. In my case, I had goals that were more important than having a business; finish my bachelor, accumulate savings, studying my MBA, socialising.

I hope this is not your case!. I am almost 40, and I have realised that I have so much to do. One of the things on my checklist is being a businesswoman (or trying to be). I know success is not guaranteed, but I want to try. I will start here in England, a country where I have lived for a few years and where the possibilities are unlimited. So, I will share a few articles about entrepreneurship in England and how to start a business. (I hope it is an interesting topic even if you are thinking of starting a business in the future).

In this article, I will show the last data published by The Office for National Statistics- ONS about the performance of new companies in the UK. I will analyse the period 2014-2017, specifically London and Bexley (the council which governs the town where I actually live). I will look for trends to describe the market for entrepreneurs. See the following figure.

According to the data, England has the most representative figures in terms of births, deaths and number of companies. London represents approximately 20% of the statistics for the UK. The city of London has had substantial increases in new companies; 90% in 2014-2015 and 22% in 2016-2017. However, these are overshadowed by high rises in the number of businesses that closed in the same period (2017 being the most critical). The trend seems to be negative.

The period between 2014-2015 seems to be the best for creating new business in the City of London as the increment of active companies was the highest at this time with 36%. Though this is positive, the trend seems to be decreasing every year. Considering the survival of newly born companies in London, on average, after the 3rd year of operations, just 60% of them survive. The trend shows a reduction in the number of survivors as the years pass. See the following figure.

Well, many questions are in my head now. Are the trends continuing? What has the UK government done to help new start-ups? How many people are employed by new entrepreneurs? How can we take advantage of the free available training to be successful? I will try to answer all those questions in future blogs. For now, the panorama is not entirely positive, but the information available is too old to come to trusted conclusions. Also, Brexit will have a massive effect on the economy, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the UK government offer more help to new businesses.

References

• Office for National Statistics- ONS (2018) UK business: activity, size and location. October 3^rd 2018, London. Available from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/datasets/ukbusinessactivitysizeandlocation[Accessed 8th Aug 2019]
• Office for National Statistics- ONS (2018) Business demography, UK: 2017. Nov 21^st2018, London. Available from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/businessdemography/2017#business-births-and-deaths-in-wider-economic-context[Accessed 8^thAug 2019]

• Picture:
  • Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash