For years people have wanted to break away from the daily grind, working for someone else and set up on their own. Well, it appears that over the last few years, more and more people have made this dream a reality.
Last year, the UK saw a huge rise in new start-up companies, with tech companies topping the list with a 14% rise. You might wonder why this is becoming increasingly popular now, but with the rise of digital technologies, much more accessible delivery service companies and an increase in social movement, you can begin to see why it’s happening.
But where in the UK is best for start-ups? Well, it would appear that you won’t need to look too far.
Midland Boom
Well, as you can probably predict, London dominates the start-up scene. In fact it saw an incredible 187,250 businesses pop up last year. However, when you look outside of the capital, it was Birmingham that topped the list.
With a staggering 12,108 business being set-up in Birmingham in 2018, it beat its nearest competitor, Manchester, with nearly 4,000 more businesses launching. And what was the most popular type of start-up? Tech companies.
This appears to be a trend spreading throughout the Midlands. Known as the ‘Midland Boom’, this has been happening over the last few years, with Milton Keynes accounting for a huge portion of growth due to new businesses popping up, alongside investment in the city and surrounding areas. In fact, this boom was attributed to the growth of house prices by 0.8% between April and May 2018.
Bucking the Trend
Interestingly, despite there being a huge rise in start-ups across the nation, it would appear that the Midlands is one of the only ones avoiding the trend of failing after a short while.
When it comes to small businesses, the survival rate after the first year is as high as 91%. However, after the first five years, it’s been found that only four in ten small business tend to still be standing. Interestingly though, it’s been found that new companies in more remote areas have a higher rate of survival.
The Midlands however, seems to be one of the only major areas joining these remote places. This was discovered following research that discovered businesses in the East Midlands are least likely to fail in relation to population size – particularly when it came to tech firms.
When compared to other areas, you can really see the difference, with London accounting for 49% of all high-growth start-up failures. Meanwhile, the North East has a disproportionally high failure rate, with 13 companies failing for every one million residents.
So, if you’re looking to go it alone in 2019, it would appear that the safest place to open a start-up would be the Midlands.
