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.

Annual data on quality measures for business turnover, approximate gross value added (aGVA), purchases and employment costs, from the Annual Business Survey.

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:

• Improve the understanding of what drives and constrains business performance and growth by addressing evidence gaps relating to the lags between many business activities and associated performance outcomes;
• Provide improved data on current business performance and the factors that affect this. The larger survey size will provide more reliable findings for key sub-groups of the business population and in relation to activities such as seeking finance, which are only relevant to part of the sample.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 held in early 2023, *** percent of responding marketing leaders from the United Kingdom (UK) stated that digital marketing contributed very highly to the performance of their companies in 2022. On the other hand, *** percent said that it did not contribute at all to their companies' performance.

Quality measures for annual data on size and growth within the UK non-financial business sectors, as measured by the Annual Business Survey.

Overall, the tech sector in the United Kingdom has increased its performance in 2022 compared to 2021. Approximately 70 percent of respondents reported that company segments such as sales and investment plans increased in 2022.

Confidence intervals for 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.