Numbers of enterprises and local units produced from a snapshot of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 8 March 2024.

The Small Business Survey (SBS) is a large scale telephone survey commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) as a follow up to the Annual Survey of Small Businesses 2007/8. The main aims of the first SBS survey in 2010 were to:

• monitor key enterprise indicators (e.g. employment, turnover, finance, business growth) and how these have changed in comparison to previous surveys. In particular the survey measures characteristics of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) such as the proportions which are women and minority-ethnic led, and the proportions applying for and obtaining external finance


• gauge SME intentions, needs, concerns and the obstacles to fulfilling their potential
• provide evidence for possible Government interventions to assist SMEs
• create a database which can be used for follow-up studies among the general SME population, or sub-groups within it

The main aims of the next survey in 2012 were to:

• monitor key enterprise indicators and how these have changed in comparison to previous surveys, the 2010 SBS in particular
• create a database that can be used for follow-up studies among the general SME population, and sub-groups within it.

From 2015, the survey methodology has changed to include a longitudinal tracking element. The Longitudinal Small Business Survey: Secure Access is available under SN 8261.

Linking to other business studies
These data contain Inter-Departmental Business Register reference numbers. These are anonymous but unique reference numbers assigned to business organisations. Their inclusion allows researchers to combine different business survey sources together. Researchers may consider applying for other business data to assist their research.

The second edition (August 2014) includes data from 2012.

During an early 2023 survey carried out among among people who run their own business or side hustle in the United Kingdom, 22 percent stated they used paid social media posts to market their business. ost used channel amogn the six presented in the data set was organic/non-paid social media, named by 25 percent of respondents.

This dataset provides comprehensive insights into business exit trends among Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom for the year 2025. It encompasses data from a survey of 29,965 SME owners, highlighting key factors influencing business exits, preferred exit strategies, and the economic impact of these exits.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

In January 2004, a consortium of public and private sector organisations commissioned Warwick Business School to carry out the United Kingdom Survey of Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises' (SME) Finances, 2004. This was the first representative survey of SMEs to offer a close analysis of businesses with fewer than 250 employees, their main owners and their access to external finance. A second survey was conducted in 2008, where business owners were interviewed by telephone about the finances they have used or applied for in the last three years, their financial relationships, the characteristics of the business and personal details.

In 2007, another consortium of UK public sector bodies, small business representative organisations and finance providers agreed to sponsor a similar survey to the 2004 survey, conducted by the Centre for Business Research based at the University of Cambridge. This study is held at the UKDA under SN 6049, with the title United Kingdom Survey of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises' Finances, 2007. It aimed to compile another benchmark and to identify any changes or trends that had emerged since 2004, but made a number of changes to the 2004 questionnaire, so that it is not a direct member of the UKSMEF series, but stands alongside it as a separate cross-sectional survey. The UKSMEF 2008 survey was conducted by the same Principal Investigator as the 2004 survey, based at Warwick Business School, and the 2008 report provides direct comparison between the 2004 and 2008 surveys.

The aims of the 2009 survey were to:

• provide benchmarking data on the availability of credit to SMEs and the types of finance used
• collect information on the relationship between SMEs and their providers of finance
• develop a general purpose micro database for quantitative research on business finance (offering, for example, scope for comparisons with the US Survey of Small Business Finances)

The 2009 sample consisted of 1,250 follow up interviews with businesses interviewed for the 2008 survey. Telephone interviews were conducted by IFF Research Ltd during autumn 2009. These interviews focused on the cost and availability of overdrafts and term loans to businesses in the previous year due to policy makers concerns about the affect of the Credit Crisis on bank lending to SMEs. The data can be used for panel data analysis, in conjunction with UKSMEFs 2004 and 2008, or for standalone cross-sectional analysis. A set of population weights is included in the dataset so that this analysis can be weighted to the UK SME population. These weights were calculated using statistics provided by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills Enterprise Directorate - see Business population estimates, formerly 'SME Statistics'.

Further information may be found on the ESRC UK Survey of SME Finances 2009 Follow On Study award webpage.


Main Topics:

Topics covered in the survey included

• personal characteristics of the owner/manager
• firm demographics
• providers of finance
• use of current accounts, deposit accounts, trade credit, commercial loans and mortgages, assets and asset-based finance, credit cards and equity finance
• income and profits and balance sheet information

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The main objective of the research project was to create a longitudinal panel database of SME data relating to a wide range of non-financial and attitudinal characteristics, and a limited number of financial variables not normally available in modified company accounts, from a national postal survey. This database forms the beginning of the second panel - the first panel was started in 1991. A postal survey was sent to over 10,000 independent small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing and business services sectors in England, Scotland and Wales. Just over half (5,430) the firms were telephoned prior to being sent the questionnaire, and 4,640 firms were sent the questionnaire blind.
One other study concerned with SMEs by the same Principal Investigator(s) is held at the UK Data Archive under SN 4156.
Main Topics:

The questionnaire covered the following topics: general business characteristics; workforce and training; commercial activity and competitive situation; innovation; factors affecting expansion and efficieny; acquisition activity, capital expenditure and finance.

The indicators and analysis presented in this bulletin are based on responses from the new 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. These data relate to the period 6 April 2020 to 19 April 2020.

The theories which have sought to explain the phenomena of agglomeration and deglomeration of firms have focused mostly on manufacturing industries and are dominated by manufacturing paradigms. Many of the factors cited in these theories to derive agglomeration may not be applicable to professional business service (PBS) industries (such as internal and external economies of scale, disintegration, flexible specialisation). Yet, geographic clusters of firms, especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) competing in the same industry, exist also in PBS industries to which existing theory provides only limited explanation.
The location of PBS firms has attracted the attention of economic geographers, who have also sought explanations for the concentration of these firms in particular locations. The main reason cited to explain this phenomenon is demand driven, that is, PBS firms locate themselves in proximity to their clients. This explanation seems to be limited and does not acknowledge a range of both demand and supply factors which may affect this pattern of geographical concentration.
This research seeks explanations for two apparently contradictory phenomena related to the location of PBS firms. The first is the existence of geographical clusters of PBS SMEs in large metropolitan centres such as London. The second is the deglomeration of PBS SMEs, to the extent that these have been locating since the 1970s in smaller towns and even rural areas of England away from the main geographical clusters. The research is designed to acknowledge the unique characteristics of these industries (such as short value added chains typically implemented by a single production unit, limited potential for economies of scale in production, competitive advantage based on embodied expertise), which distinguish them from both manufacturing and other service industries, and which may explain both the geographical clusters of some firms in these industries and the de-concentration of others.

Data on SME performance and the factors that affect this. Based on a series of surveys among small and medium-sized (SME) employer enterprises across the UK. The survey assesses how well or badly small businesses are performing, their needs, concerns and barriers to growth.

The number of small and medium-sized enterprises in the United Kingdom was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 4.5 thousand enterprises (+3.12 percent). After the fifteenth consecutive increasing year, the number is estimated to reach 148.68 thousand enterprises and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises of was continuously increasing over the past years.According to the OECD an enterprise is defined as the smallest combination of legal units, which is an organisational unit producing services or goods, that benefits from a degree of autonomy with regards to the allocation of resources and decision making. Shown here are small and medium-sized enterprises, which are defined as companies with 1-249 employees.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. All input data are sourced from international institutions, national statistical offices, and trade associations. All data has been are processed to generate comparable datasets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

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 London businesses’ awareness and experience of business support available to SMEs corresponding with Section 6 of the London Business Survey 2014: Main Findings report.

Information is provided on:

• The sources of external advice used by London businesses

• The topics on which external advice is sought by London businesses

• Business awareness and use of incubator, accelerator and co-working spaces

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 dataset covers the various technologies used across London boroughs to deliver their services and back office operations. The data includes information on 809 IT systems and their respective contracts and suppliers.

The data has been visualised in the City Tools: London dashboard and key insights are covered in the accompanying report.

This data is provided and maintained by the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI). The data has been prepared to the best of our knowledge, but LOTI accepts no liabilities caused by errors or omissions.

The following notes define some of the key terms used in the dataset.

Borough refers to a London local authority.

• AfC refers to Achieving for Children, a not-for-profit social enterprise set up by the boroughs of Kingston and Richmond, to deliver their children's services.

Type refers to Corporate and Frontline service areas.

• Corporate refers to central support functions to service areas.
• Frontline refers to services delivered to support residents.

Service refers to individual service areas.

Capability refers to departments within services areas.

System refers to a product licensed and / or operated by a supplier.

System Manufacturer refers to a system manufacturer that may license / manufacture more than one product to support a service.

Contract end date raw refers to the raw data submitted by boroughs.

Contract end date refers to the inferred date in the format dd/mm/yyyy.

SME refers to the Digital Market Place's definition of SME.

• True means the organisation is an SME as defined by the Digital Market Place
• False means the organisation is not an SME as defined by the Digital Market Place
• Null means that no information was provided

To select the group of UK firms we initially searched in the FAME database (available from the University of Manchester Library) with keywords relating to the green goods sector, please see the publication Shapira, et al (2014, in Technological Forecasting & Social Change, vol. 85, pp. 93-104) for further details on the keywords. This database contains anonymized firm data from a sample of UK firms in the green goods production industry. We combine data from structured sources (the FAME database, patents and publications) with unstructured data mined from firm's web-sites by saving key words in text and summing up counts of these to create additional explanatory variables for firm growth. The data is in a panel from 2003-2012 with some observations missing for firms. We collect historical data from firm's web-sites available in an archive from the Wayback machine.

This project probes the growth strategies of innovative small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). Our research focuses on emerging green goods industries that manufacture outputs which benefit the environment or conserve natural resources, with an international comparative element involving the UK, the US, and China.

The project investigates the contributions of strategy, resources and relationships to how innovative British, American, and Chinese SMEs achieve significant growth. The targeted technology-oriented green goods sectors are strategically important to environmental rebalancing and have significant potential (in the UK) for export growth. The research examines the diverse pathways to innovation and growth across different regions. We use a mix of methodologies, including analyses of structured and unstructured data on SME business and technology performance and strategies, case studies, and modelling. Novel approaches using web mining are pioneered to gain timely information about enterprise developmental pathways. Findings from the project will be used to inform management and policy development at enterprise, regional and national levels.

The project is led by the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research at the University of Manchester, in collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology, US; Beijing Institute of Technology, China, and Experian, UK.