Hampshire Trust Bank and The Centre for Economics and Business Research recently released some research into SME entrants in the UK since 2010. The report broke results down into sectors and found the three sectors which demonstrated the highest growth were technical and professional (39%), information and communication (33%) and business services (25%). Some of the other key findings also include:
- The services sector witnesses a 19% increase in SME entrants in the sector
- Overall, UK SMEs see a 17% rise in new entrants since 2010
- Services SMEs show strong levels of confidence in their sector
It seems that the sectors with the highest number of start-ups entrants are also feeling more confident about the long-term economic prospects of the industry they operate in. Three in five (59%) accountancy and IT and communication firms say they feel optimistic. By comparison, 57% of medical and health services SMEs feel confident about the future, 5% higher than the national average.
Stuart Hulme, Director of Savings at Hampshire Trust Bank, said: “According to our latest UK SME Savings Tracker report, services SMEs, namely health and medical firms, have a significant amount of cash in business savings accounts, which is encouraging and we believe shows that these organisations are confidently planning for their future.
“Our SME Growth Watch report highlights the vital contribution of SMEs both within the services sector and indeed across all sectors to the UK economy, and the rapid level of growth being demonstrated by some of the nation’s smallest businesses. These figures should be viewed as encouraging for the government, demonstrating the widespread resilience and ambition of UK SMEs.
“At Hampshire Trust Bank we provide consistently competitive business savings accounts to help SMEs develop and build. We urge the government to undertake proactive measures to create opportunities and conditions that enable them to continue to flourish.”
In a separate report by Capital Economics we also see that small business confidence is increasing. Their SME Growth Tracker of 2017 revealed that SMEs are predicting a 2.3% increase in revenue for next year.
Simon Johnson, UK director of Seller Services, Amazon, said: “We are seeing a big rebound in confidence amongst British small businesses after a significant decline in December, but small businesses leaders remain concerned about the impact of rising supply costs and higher price inflation.”