Resource

Business demography

Percentage of business births, deaths and high growth, UK, 2018 to 2023.

Title

Business demography

Description

This dataset shows the percentage of business births, deaths and high growth, in the UK, for 2018 to 2023.

Coverage

UK

Geography definition

Local Authority Districts and Unitary Authorities, English counties, Combined authorities, Regions, Nations (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland), Countries (UK, GB, England and Wales)

Source

Source Notes and Caveats

  • A birth is identified as a business that was present in year t, but did not exist in year t-1 or t-2. Births are identified by making comparison of annual active population files and identifying those present in the latest file, but not the two previous ones.
  • The birth rate is calculated using the number of births as a proportion of the active businesses.
  • A death is defined as a business that was on the active file in year t, but was no longer present in the active file in t+1 and t+2. In order to provide an early estimate of deaths, an adjustment has been made to the latest two years deaths to allow for reactivations. These figures are provisional and subject to revision.
  • The death rate is calculated using the number of deaths as a proportion of the active businesses.
  • The starting point for demography is the concept of a population of active businesses in a reference year (t). These are defined as businesses that had either turnover or employment at any time during the reference period. Births and deaths are then identified by comparing active populations for different years.
  • High growth measures all businesses with an average growth in employment of greater than 20%, per annum, over a three-year period. The size threshold used to identify these businesses is that they have 10 or more employees.
  • The rate of high growth businesses is calculated using the number of high growth businesses as a proportion of the active businesses with 10 or more employees.
  • Some of this data has been aggregated and may show differences to other published figures.