The UK is on course to start up more than half a million businesses in 2013, beating last year’s record, according to statistics from StartUp Britain, the campaign to boost entrepreneurship.
Over 390,000 businesses had been set up by late September and the figures are set to hit the 500,000 target for the campaign, led by Luke Johnson, the Financial Times columnist.
Co-founder of Star Up Britain, Emma Jones said: “These figures are raw, they are unaudited, but what they are telling us is that there has been more growth in start-up rates – and we’re on track to hit the half-a-million target.
“At the beginning of the year the campaign pledged to do all it could to get the start-up figures up to 500,000 and it looks like we’re going to make it. Start-ups and small businesses represent 95 per cent of all companies and employ more than 7m people.”
The figures come direct from StartUp Britain’s daily tracker, which monitors the number of businesses listed with Companies House on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.
Last year, 484,224 businesses were launched – a new record – compared with 440,600 in 2011.
There were 3.1m active companies recorded by the end of August, the last audited figure produced by Companies House.
However, some critics say many businesses are set up by professionals who would like full-time salaried work but are forced to contract out after losing their jobs in the downturn.
