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

Ofcom undertakes research on the availability and experience of communications services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, defined as businesses with fewer than 250 employees. A survey of 1501 SMEs (0-249 employees) was undertaken using CATI (computer aided telephone interviewing). The survey data were weighted to be representative of the SME universe on size. Fieldwork took place between 9 May and 18 July 2016.

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.

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 usedcollect information on the relationship between SMEs and their providers of financedevelop 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.

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.

This data describes small and medium enterprise (SME) relationships with large businesses and how these affect SME growth. Provides evidence for a report on the factors that affect growth in medium sized businesses; and how relationships and interactions between SMEs and large businesses affect SME growth.

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.

Value and volume of retail sales broken down by size of business

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 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.

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.

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. We collected the financial information on the UK firms by downloading Companies House data from the FAME database available through the University of Manchester Library (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/searchresources/databases/f/). Grant information on companies came from the Technology Strategy Board. Patent information was from the Derwent database and publication information was from the Web of Science. The Consumer Price index was from the Office for National Statistics (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/consumer-price-indices/index.html). The Human Resources in Science and Technology variable was from the Eurostat database (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database). Unstructured data was mined from firm's web-sites. The UK Intellectual Property Office has clarified that the data mining we are doing and the way we are doing it is permissible. See: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/375954/Research.pdf

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.

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

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. In the UK, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) now provide more employment and business turnover than large firms and public organisations together. Statistically, firms with under 250 employees in 1998 employed 57% of the workforce and accounted for 54% of turnover. This fits in with government policies to promote small businesses and self-employment more generally. Small size, however, creates problems as well as opportunities. Whereas large firms may operate with special departments to look after innovation, marketing and training needs, for example, small firms lack these resources. This can be a barrier to expansion. However, by collaborating with other SMEs on certain business functions such as joint marketing to get into or extend export markets, or by sharing non-confidential knowledge to enhance innovation capacity, they can together overcome barriers caused by small size in a relatively costless manner. The survey and interviews for this project sought to identify firms that engage in formal and informal partnerships based on mutual trust, exchanging favours, and judging reliability, credibility and reputation to be a safeguard against opportunistic behaviour. The key question asked in this research was whether firms that make use of these kinds of 'social capital' display superior or inferior business performance compared to those that do not, holding everything else as far as possible constant. By exploring different types of social capital, some based on cultural identity, ethnicity or religion, some arising from membership of a specific, perhaps geographically defined economic community or particular industry, the research aimed to show the extent to which social capital may influence economic performance and draw policy lessons accordingly. In order to investigate relationships between SME performance and social capital, operational measures of these two variables were developed and employed. The former were measured by turnover, profitability, employment and innovation performance, the latter by engagement in networks of a business, professional, social, cultural or political nature that had a bearing upon business performance. These were measured using Likert-based scaling measures. An index of area performance was drawn up for the UK to construct a sampling frame for a postal questionnaire survey capable of discriminating by spatial and economic categories of interest. Main Topics: The survey covered topics region, turnover, profit, type of industry, employment, quality standards, products and services, performance, skills, social contact and organisation membership, sharing of information and collaboration (with financial organisations, FE/HE, research institutes and other local, national or international companies), business support and consultancy, social capital and trust. Standard Measures Likert-type scales used in the questionnaire. Multi-stage stratified random sample Respondents were chosen on a random basis within a sampling frame (a specially-constructed geographical index of performance) to achieve representativeness in terms of size and sector of business. Face-to-face interview

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. This survey is commissioned by the Business Finance Taskforce to provide an independent and authoritative report into the key issues of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) Finance. 4,500 telephone interviews are conducted per quarter, across the UK (5,000 prior to 2016), with a carefully structured sample of SMEs by size, sector and region. The survey explores the demand for external funding amongst SMEs and the response to requests for funding made to banks in the last 12 months. It also asks for future finance needs and assesses business confidence, growth, and barriers to growth for the future, as well as the impact of a lending experience on the overall banking relationship. As well as identifying the proportion of SMEs that have approached a lender for external finance, the survey identified those who would have liked to apply but have not, the barriers to such an application, and the impact of the decision not to seek funding on business performance. A wide range of business demographics are collected to allow for sub-group analysis by criteria such as age of business, external risk rating, type of facility requested, and the 'formality' of the business (planning, HR policies, importing, exporting etc). The intention is for this to become the definitive data set on this topic for banks, government, business organisations and other interested parties, including academics. It is hoped it will be used to provide answers, obviate the need for similar quantitative research, and provide the starting point for spin-off projects into specific aspects of SME Finance. Further information may be found on the BVA BDRC SME Finance Monitor website. Each data file includes all data collected for the last 10 waves, whilst the reports focus on data gathered from the last 4 quarters. The report is now released once per year, after Q4, but data is released twice a year (after Q2 and Q4). Latest Edition InformationFor the twenty-fifth edition (July 2024), additional data and documentation were deposited to extend the coverage to Quarter 4, 2023. Main Topics: The survey explores demand for external funding amongst SMEs and the response to requests for funding made to banks in the last 12 months. It also asks for future finance needs and assesses business confidence, growth, and barriers to growth for the future, as well as the impact of a lending experience on the overall banking relationship. Quota sample Telephone interview: Computer-assisted (CATI)

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. This project focused on the funding of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in different regions in Europe against the background of increasing integration of Europe’s financial space, and the specific context of dramatic transformation of regional and local banking systems and the emergence of a venture capital market. To the extent that a bank funding gap is emerging amongst SMEs, other sources of finance are likely to be of growing importance. One of these is the emerging European venture capital market, and this survey examined the nature, extent and role of this new circuit of finance for the SME sector. At present the venture capital market is unevenly developed, being much more advanced in the UK than in other member states. The research endeavoured to identify the reasons for this uneven development, and to assess whether the emergence of, access to, and scope for venture capital funding of SMEs is likely to benefit some local economies more than others. The evidence for the UK seems to suggest so far that the development of a geographically biased system of finance provision for SMEs in which both bank finance and venture capital favour certain (typically successful) regions over other (typically less successful) regions.

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.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The Research into the Barriers to Take-up and Use of Business Support, 2011 study was a one-off survey concerned with the barriers to the take up of formal external assistance, the reasons for such barriers and whether there is evidence of market failure, and the extent of latent demand for business support services. The research differentiates between: (i) non users of external assistance; (ii) users of private sector external assistance such as from accountants, solicitors, consultants, and trade associations; and (iii) users of public sector business assistance such as from Business Link, UK Trade and Investment, and local authorities. The research was based on a CATI telephone survey of the owner-managers of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in England undertaken in March 2011. Linking to other business studies These data contain Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) 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.For Secure Lab projects applying for access to this study as well as to SN 6697 Business Structure Database and/or SN 7683 Business Structure Database Longitudinal, only postcode-free versions of the data will be made available.

Data underlying the report of a study that assesses and quantifes the impacts of the financial crisis and subsequent global economic recession on the growth and performance of UK SME employers. Analyses existing data from two previous survey sources on SME employers in the pre-recession and recessionary periods. Covers how the problems in the banking sector have affected the supply of finance to the SME sector, and whether this has depressed business performance and investment. Looks at the impact of the recession has been more serious for particular types of entrepreneurs and businesses.