A Year of ‘Women in Business’

It’s been a year since we launched our ‘Woman in Business’ campaign, and what a year it's been. Over the last year, we’ve had the privilege to talk to multiple female-owned businesses and their founders about entrepreneurship. During this time, we’ve learnt a lot about how women feel in the entrepreneurial space and more about the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs. 

Today, we’re taking a look at the big picture. We wanted to understand how female entrepreneurship has faired over the last 12 months. 

The General Picture

In the last year, a record number of 900,000 companies have been formed in the UK. With a rise in net formations, there has also been a rise in companies formed by women founders. In 2023, 164,000 companies were incorporated by women. This is a 4% increase on 2022 figures and a general growth of 26% since 2019.

Whilst a steady and growing rise in formations is extremely encouraging and significant, there is still a long way to go. There are still more male entrepreneurs (69%) than female entrepreneurs and when we break the data down through regions within the UK and other factors like race, the numbers show a clear gap.

The positive news is that the gap is closing, however, there is still a long way to go until it's closed.

As the Allison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship reported an additional £250 billion can be added to the UK economy if women matched their counterparts in creating companies. This shows us that closing the entrepreneurial gap is more than a social cause, but one with a huge economic impact. 

Women-led Business by Region 

Certain regions within the UK lead the country’s rise in women-led businesses. The latest statistics show us that Edinburgh and South East Scotland were the UK regions with the highest percentage of self-employed women. Shortly behind them was the North of Tyne, which includes Newcastle on Tyne, and the West of England. Both of these regions had joint percentages of 34.7%.

Surprisingly, London ranked 7th with 33.1%. London does have the highest number of female entrepreneurs. However, in comparison to the population and the larger workforce, London ranks lower statistically.

Swansea Bay Region, Greater Manchester and Tees Valley ranked at the bottom for regions with the lowest percentage of female entrepreneurs.

Overall, throughout the UK we see female entrepreneurship blossom, it is also refreshing to see a non-London dominance in figures. While London is the business capital of the UK, entrepreneurship can flourish anywhere– and may even do better in areas like Edinburgh.

Of course, the data shows us formations, when a company is made, whereas to understand the scope of female entrepreneurship we need to examine companies which continue past the early days, the challenges they may face and examining what the support from the government and private industries is like.

What Do Female Founders Have To Say?

Over the year, we spoke to many female founders about entrepreneurship, the good and the bad.

These businesses spanned a range of industries, from professional services to scientific technology to whiskey. They also had different beginnings, from small home businesses to funded companies, and all of them varied in size and location.

Despite these differences, our founders spoke of mostly common experiences and learnings and a few outliers.

Make Female Entrepreneurship More Visible

When we launched the ‘Women in Business’ campaign, we found a statistic by Santander in 2020 which says that a ‘staggering 81% of 11-18-year-olds are unable to name a single female entrepreneur'. This shows that despite yearly growth in female entrepreneurship and despite a number of huge companies being led and founded by women. Such as Whitney Wolfe Herd founder of Bumble, and Julia Hartz founder of Eventbrite, the visibility of female entrepreneurs is extremely low.

Less visibility can and does translate into fewer women pursuing starting their own company, due to a lack of role models and encouragement.

Our founders shared the same sentiment: even a few years later, the visibility of female entrepreneurship remains low, which can be discouraging for budding women in business.

We asked our founders ‘How can more women be encouraged to start their own business?’ The response was unanimous. Our founders remarked that entrepreneurship should be presented as a viable career path for women, and we must share more stories of female founders and their experiences.

Secondly, our founders mentioned that it's equally important to highlight both the good and the bad experiences, as being transparent can allow budding entrepreneurs to make more informed decisions.

Building a Professional Network

Another common thread we picked up throughout the interviews was the necessity to build a network. Many of the founders mentioned how important it is to collaborate and share knowledge with other entrepreneurs within the industry. This allows them to feel more assured at the start of their journeys. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely endeavour, by building a network of peers you can ask questions and share knowledge to allow each other to stay afloat and feel less lonely.

Secondly, when we conducted our initial research, we found that things such as networking and finding mentors can allow female entrepreneurs to feel more empowered and in control. Networking is also good for business, through your network, you can find new staff, new suppliers, new clients and more.

This is why the Rose Review, alongside other programmes made to help female entrepreneurship, encourages finding a mentor and network. Community and peers can help build empowerment and allow you to improve yourself and your business.

Managing Expectations

Of course, being an entrepreneur is not without its challenges. One common issue we noticed in our research is managing expectations.

Most of our founders spoke of how difficult it is to start as a business owner, it can be overwhelming, lonely and hard to manage expectations and uncertainty.

However, over time our founders gained knowledge and experience which allowed them to manage their expectations better. This included techniques such as looking at the wider landscape of their industries, understanding that certain things (such as regulatory bodies or funding) can take time and constantly adjusting plans to reflect the reality of their business.

Essentially, the teething problems faced by founders at the beginning petered out as they gained more experience. The moral here is that there will be issues at the start, but eventually, your growth as an entrepreneur will allow you to overcome them. Of course, by sharing with experienced business owners, or your network, entrepreneurs can receive these reassurances early on.

The Future of Female Entrepreneurs

In 2023, women formed more companies than ever before. This alone shows us that there is an appetite among women to become entrepreneurs. Secondly, in the last financial year (April 2023-April 2024) there was a significant increase in company formations overall. More and more people are turning to entrepreneurship as a career, and of course, women are part of this trend. 

The growth in women-led businesses can be down to more stories of entrepreneurship being shared on social media, more funding being tailored for female start-ups and working from home giving women great flexibility.

The future of female entrepreneurship is bright, but investment of time and resources by the government and the private sector is still needed. Many of our founders mentioned that issues like childcare and lack of policy do affect them. However, many existing action groups are working towards that change and slowly we will see the tide turn. Especially when we take time to champion existing founders and their journeys.  

Are You a Female Business Owner? We Need You!

Since August 2023 we have been highlighting female-led businesses of all shapes and sizes. However, our journey does not end here. If you are a woman who owns a business, we need you.

Join our campaign today to help increase the visibility of entrepreneurship and help encourage the next generation of women in business.

Alternatively, if you are someone who has always dreamt of taking the plunge and starting a business. Let us help you! We have formed over 1 million companies since 2002. Entrepreneurship is extremely important to us, and we want to encourage everyone to follow their passions. We can help you start today.

More Women in Business 

You can expand your knowledge about female entrepreneurship by reading the full series on our start-up hub. You can also find our interviews with our founders on our Instagram and LinkedIn.