By Anna Jordan on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
One in seven adults now plan on becoming entrepreneurs, up 50 per cent from 2019, according to a report from NatWest.
The bank partnered with business schools and universities across the UK to put together the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2020. They interviewed 9,400 adults between the ages of 18 and 80.
This growth has come about despite data saying that the number of existing entrepreneurs dropped by 25 per cent over the course of 2020.
Clear differences within age and ethnicity were also evident. Younger people aged 18-29 were more likely to start their own businesses, while 55-64-year-olds were the least likely to do so. BAME communities have double the number of existing entrepreneurs (14 per cent) compared to the overall population (7.5 per cent).
Mark Hart, 50th anniversary professor of small business and entrepreneurship at Aston University, said: “Those ethnic-minority communities that have borne the brunt of the pandemic in terms of infection, hospitalisation and sadly deaths demonstrated their resilience by maintaining their previous levels of early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA rate) which were significantly higher than for the non-ethnic minority population.
“Clearly, the pandemic has had