Yahoo Finance Startups: Less than one in 10 Brits keen on starting a business
More than 70% of Brits think that setting up a new business is easy, but less than one in ten has any intention of doing so, a new survey has found.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report for 2021/2022 which was unveiled at the Dubai Expo on Tuesday 8 February looked at entrepreneurial activity across 47 high, medium and low-income economies.
For the survey, 2,000 respondents from each country were asked questions on their entrepreneurial activity, attitudes to enterprise and view of their local entrepreneurial eco-system.
51% of Brits who took part believed that they had the skills and knowledge to start up their own business, while an impressive 61% of respondents believed that there were good opportunities for startups in their area.
However, more than half of those who believed there were good business opportunities in their field – 52% – cited fear of failure as a reason for not opening up a new business in the next three years.
Moreover, British participants appeared a lot less confident about startups than the respondents from other countries, ranking 40th in terms of ‘entrepreneurial intentions’ and 32nd in ‘personally having the skills and knowledge’.
By contrast, the UK came seventh in terms of 'fear of failure'.
Dr Sreevas Sahasranamam, a senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship said that the UK is "performing poorly compared to other developed economies on government entrepreneurial programs and entrepreneurial education in school".
She warned that finance remains a "key challenge to entrepreneurial activity" for Britons, as they scored the lowest out of the 17 high-income countries (countries with GDP per capita greater than $40,000), in terms of ease of access to entrepreneurial finance.
Consequently, there are calls for a need for better education on startups and growth-oriented ventures in the UK.
Read more: UK consumer confidence hits seven-month high as COVID fears wane
Mark Hart, professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston Business School said: “Entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours will be critical for the recovery after the pandemic, as they were after the great financial crisis over a decade ago.
He added: "The recent UK Government White Paper on Levelling Up was somewhat disappointing in that respect as it ignored this key dimension of economic development across the regions and home nations of the UK”.
Read more: What is levelling up and what it means for where you live
The government said in its Levelling Up Agenda paper that it would was considering the best way for entrepreneurship to "flourish in left-behind places across the UK", but it did not mention investment into specific education centres such as the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship.
On a more positive note, the GEM report found that in 15 out of the 47 countries, more than half of people starting or running a new business thought that the pandemic had led to new business opportunities.
This included the UK, where 57% of respondents who were actively involved in startups said that they were pursuing new opportunities as a result of the pandemic.
Moreover, 63% said they were using technology to sell more products and services.
Overall, the Dominican Republic had the highest levels of early-stage entrepreneurial activity out of all survey respondents, while Poland had the lowest.
Watch: Michael Gove sets out ‘levelling up’ plans to reshape the UK
