Three in four
At the start of 2025 there were 5. 7 million private sector businesses in the UK. The shape of that number matters far more than the number itself.
Every figure is cited on screen. Company examples are fictional specimens.
Music: Inspired by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 4.0
Transcript
- 0:00
At the start of 2025 there were 5.7 million private sector businesses in the UK. The shape of that number matters far more than the number itself.
- 0:14
Three in four of them, about 4.3 million, employ nobody but the owner. Only around 1.4 million have any staff at all.
- 0:25
Which is why 99 per cent are small businesses is a useless sentence. If almost every business is in the category, saying you sell to it is barely narrower than saying you sell to businesses.
- 0:40
The useful splits are inside it. No staff at all. One to nine. Ten to 49, which is where most business products start to fit properly. Fifty to 249.
- 0:55
And note the asymmetry. Small and medium firms are 99.85 per cent of businesses, but about half of turnover. Enormous in count, much less so in spend.
- 1:11
A big count is not a big market. Filter down to the ones that fit.
About this film
Three in four runs 1:20, read by Imogen and appears on Leadistry's Blog page. The full narration is above in 6 sections, so you can read it instead of watching if that is quicker. Every figure shown on screen comes from the Companies House public record or a named published source, and the companies used as examples are fictional specimens rather than real customers.