As of the fourth quarter of 2024, 70 percent of SMEs in the United Kingdom reported that they had made a profit in the previous 12 months, compared with six percent that broke even, and 14 percent that made a loss. The share of SMEs that made a profit was relatively stable until 2020, when it fell from 73 percent in the first quarter of that year to 47 percent in the second quarter, 2021.
Approximately ** percent of SMEs made a profit in the UK in 2024, compared with ** percent that made a loss. Among medium-sized enterprises that employed 50 to 249 employees, ** percent of them made a profit, compared with ** percent of enterprises that employed 10 to 49 employees.
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Annual data on quality measures for business turnover, approximate gross value added (aGVA), purchases and employment costs, from the Annual Business Survey.
The English Business Survey (EBS) will provide ministers and officials with information about the current economic and business conditions across England. By providing timely and robust information on a regular and geographically detailed basis, the survey will enhance officials’ understanding of how businesses are being affected throughout England and improve policy making by making it more responsive to changes in economic circumstances.
BIS has selected TNS-BMRB, an independent survey provider, to conduct the survey, covering approximately 3,000 businesses across England each month. BIS are conscious of burdens on business and therefore the survey is as light-touch as possible, being both voluntary and telephone-based, requiring only 11 to 12 minutes and has been designed to not require reference to any detailed information.
The survey will provide qualitative information across a range of important variables (eg output, capacity, employment, labour costs, output prices and investment), compared with three months ago and expectations for 3 months ahead.
The outputs of the survey should also be useful to businesses, providing valuable intelligence about local economic and business conditions.
The EBS is still in its infancy and therefore full quality assurance of the data is not yet possible. Estimates from the survey have therefore been designated as Experimental Official Statistics. Results should be interpreted with this in mind.
EBS statistics are published on a monthly and quarterly basis:
Detailed results are available from the English Business Survey Reporting tool, see ‘Detailed results’ section, below. The latest statistical releases and monthly statistics are available below, with historic releases and data available from the http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121017180846/http://www.bis.gov.uk/analysis/statistics/sub-national-statistics/ebsurvey/ebsurvey-archive" class="govuk-link">EBS archive page.
Data from the English Business Survey are published on a monthly and quarterly basis. The exact publication date will be announced four weeks in advance. We are working towards a regular publication cycle, however, due to the experimental nature of the data, the publication date for each month may vary. Future publication dates will be added to the http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/release-calendar/index.html?newquery=*&title=English+Business+Survey&source-agency=Business%2C+Innovation+and+Skills&pagetype=calendar-entry&lday=&lmonth=&lyear=&uday=&umonth=&uyear" class="govuk-link">National Statistics Publication Hub.
Detailed results providing the full range of English Business Survey statistics are available from the http://dservuk.tns-global.com/English-Business-Survey-Reporting-Tool" class="govuk-link">Reporting Tool. Quarterly (Discrete & Cumulative) data are available for the full range of geographies:
The latest EBS data will be added to the tool on a quarterly basis and cumulative monthly data will be available from the http://dservuk.tns-global.com/English-Business-Survey-Reporting-Tool" class="govuk-link">Reporting Tool by early 2013.
If you have any questions on the EBS please send us an email at: ebsurvey@bis.gsi.gov.uk
The Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) is a large-scale telephone survey of small business owners and managers commissioned by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). This survey is the latest in a series of annual and biennial Small Business Surveys (SBS) dating back to 2003.
In 2015, the survey methodology changed to include a longitudinal tracking element. A large sample size was recruited in Year One (2015) to establish a panel of businesses to be re-surveyed in subsequent years. This will allow a detailed analysis of how combinations of factors affect business performance.
The LSBS is intended to:
The data available covers all respondents over the course of the six years so far. Further information and research reports are available on the GOV.UK
"https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/small-business-survey-reports">
Small Business Survey Reports webpage.
Controlled (Secure) Access Version
A Controlled (Secure) Access version of the LSBS is available from the UK Data Archive, subject to stringent secure access conditions. Extra variables include postcode district, 2-, 3-, and 4-digit SIC codes; and Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) reference numbers for linking to other business surveys. Small Business Survey data files for 2010 and 2012 containing 4-digit SIC codes and IDBR reference numbers are available under SN 6856. Users are strongly advised to check whether the safeguarded version is sufficient for their needs before considering an application for the Controlled (Secure) Access version.
Latest edition information
For the ninth edition (December 2024), the data and documentation have been updated to include Year 9 of the survey, completed during 2023-2024.
This Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) report provides the panel data for businesses that were interviewed in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021
It provides details of business performance and the factors that affect this performance, including:
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Annual data on business turnover, approximate gross value added (aGVA), purchases and employment costs, from the Annual Business Survey. Two-digit Standard Industrial Classification 2007 group by region or country.
The Northern Ireland Annual Business Inquiry is a key resource for measuring the size, performance and structure of the Northern Ireland business economy.
This is one of our small business survey reports. It provides the findings for businesses with no employees in 2018.
The report provides details of business performance and the factors that affect this performance. It includes data on:
performance in terms of employment and turnover
ambition and expectations of future performance
access to finance
use of business support
capabilities
obstacles to business success
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Weighted estimates from the voluntary fortnightly Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) about financial performance, workforce, prices, trade, and business resilience. These are official statistics in development.
As of the second quarter of 2025, approximately ** percent of businesses in the United Kingdom had seen domestic sales, custom, or bookings increase in the previous three months, compared with ** percent who advised it had stayed the same, and ** percent who had seen sales decline.
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This page is no longer updated. It has been superseded by the Business insights and impacts on the UK economy dataset page (see link in Notices). It contains comprehensive weighted datasets for Wave 7 onwards. All future BICS datasets will be available there. The datasets on this page include mainly unweighted responses from the voluntary fortnightly business survey, which captures businesses’ responses on how their turnover, workforce prices, trade and business resilience have been affected in the two-week reference period, up to Wave 17.
Official statistics are produced impartially and free from political influence.
This statistic shows the net business performance of hospitality and tourism start-ups in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2011. Restaurants had a 2.2 percent net business performance rate that year.
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Data on the performance of the United Kingdom's (UK) research base compared to seven other research-intensive countries (Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and US) and, where data are available, with the EU27, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries' groups, and three other fast growing nations (Brazil, Russia and India). Investment and performance in the national research system is tracked in an international setting, combining bibliometric and other research measure across different international indicators, presenting a multifaceted view of the UK's comparative performance in research as well as the trends that may affects its position.
During a survey carried out in early 2023, *** percent responding marketing leaders from the United Kingdom (UK) stated that digital marketing contributed very highly to the performance of their companies in 2021. On the other hand, nearly a third stated that it did not contribute at all to their companies' performance.
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The 2014 London Business Survey (LBS) is an innovative survey designed by the Office for National Statistics, on behalf of the London Enterprise Panel and the GLA. The survey collected information from a representative sample of private sector businesses in London in May-July 2014.
This dataset contains information on the performance and outlook of London businesses corresponding with Section 4 of the London Business Survey 2014: Main Findings report.
Information is provided on:
The turnover of London businesses
The change in turnover compared to 12 months ago
Whether London businesses are planning to grow
Expectations on the economic outlook for London and London businesses
As with any survey, the 2014 LBS is based on a sample and as such is subject to variability in the results. Care should therefore be taken in interpreting the survey findings. For all estimates, lower and upper limits of 95% confidence intervals are provided in the data files to assist with interpretation. The LBS results represent the population of business units in London. A business unit is defined as a site/workplace, which may also be a head office if the head office is in London. It will be the whole business in the case of businesses which only have one site, or part of the business in the case of multi-site firms.
The results are presented by enterprise size band and industry sector.
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Quality measures for annual data on size and growth within the UK non-financial business sectors, as measured by the Annual Business Survey.
Check the processing times on this page before contacting the business centre to ask about the progress of a case.
You can contact:
The County Court Business Centre is responsible for issuing new claims filed by paper and processing Attachment of Earnings and Charging Orders. If you have any queries about these, contact us on 0300 123 1356.
The UK Business Data Survey is a telephone-based quantitative and qualitative study of UK businesses. It seeks to understand the role and importance of personal and non-personal data in UK businesses, domestic and international transfers of data, and the awareness of, and attitudes toward, data protection legislation and policy.
This is the first time this survey has been carried out. The quantitative survey took place from November 2020 to January 2021 and the qualitative interviews were undertaken in February 2021. The research was delayed from spring 2020 to minimise the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the quality of responses and the robustness of the results.
As of the fourth quarter of 2024, 70 percent of SMEs in the United Kingdom reported that they had made a profit in the previous 12 months, compared with six percent that broke even, and 14 percent that made a loss. The share of SMEs that made a profit was relatively stable until 2020, when it fell from 73 percent in the first quarter of that year to 47 percent in the second quarter, 2021.