The Chamberlain News

Booming Birmingham tops business start-up league

Birmingham is the UK’s most entrepreneurial city outside of London, official figures have confirmed.

According to Companies House, 18,337 new businesses were registered in Birmingham during 2014 – an increase of about 15 per cent on the previous year, and more than any other city outside the capital.

Manchester is in second place with 13,054 companies registered and Brighton is third with 8,344.

The figures, compiled by StartUp Britain, are the latest clear evidence of a continuing post-recession boom in the Birmingham business world.

The Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP area attracted more inward investment projects than any other English region last year, while Birmingham’s GVA increased by six per cent between 2012 and 2013, more than any other UK core city.

Birmingham has doubled its number of accelerator and incubator programmes in the past two years, according to a report by Telefonica from November 2014 called ‘The Rise of the UK Accelerator and Incubator System’

However, the start-up figures also underline vast chasm of productivity between London and the South-east and the rest of the country. Top performer on the  according to post code was Greater London with 184,671 businesses registered.

Research from the national enterprise campaign, run by the Centre for Entrepreneurs think tank, shows 581,173 UK businesses were registered with Companies House, beating the previous record of 526,446 businesses recorded in 2013, and 484,224 in 2012.

Headline statistics, according to the Centre for Entrepreneurs, are:

• London and South East maintain entrepreneurial power house status.
• Birmingham top performing city outside of South-east.
• Entrepreneurial activity in Manchester booming, making it the hot spot of the North.
• High levels of growth in Yorkshire and Humberside, and the East Midlands.

Luke Johnson, chairman of the Centre for Entrepreneurs, said: “Starting a business is easier, quicker and cheaper than ever thanks to new technology.

“Entrepreneurs have higher profiles than in the past and are seen as role models. Traditional jobs for life have largely disappeared, as have occupational pensions.”

Figures from the Office for National Statistics cited in the Sunday Times suggest that as well as the rise in start-ups, there has been a marked drop in the number of business failures. With the number of firms dropping out of the Companies House register falling 6%, from 253,000 to 238,000, last year.

The annual figures comes directly from StartUp Britain’s StartUp tracker, an online tool which reveals the number of businesses registered with Companies House on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.

Neil Rami, chief executive of Marketing Birmingham, said: “Birmingham’s ability to attract and retain the UK’s entrepreneurial talent has created a thriving eco-system of start-ups, which is helping to drive its economic growth.

“Increasing numbers of ambitious new businesses are locating in Birmingham as the city enters a new period of transformation – with schemes ranging from Birmingham New Street’s redevelopment to the transformation of the Paradise Circus area and the impending construction of HS2.”