Record number of businesses launched by women in 2022
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Posted: Wed 22nd Feb 2023
The number of new businesses incorporated by female founders reached a record high last year, new figures show.
The latest update from the Treasury commissioned Rose Review of female entrepreneurship showed there were 151,603 all-female-led incorporations in 2022, an increase of 4% on 2021 and significantly more than the 56,269 in 2018.
They accounted for 20% of all incorporations last year, compared to 16.7% in 2018. New female entrepreneurs aged 16 to 25 saw the biggest leap with a rise of almost 25%.
Alison Rose, the CEO of NatWest who leads the review, said:
"It's a testament to the resilience and entrepreneurialism of female founders that they are creating more companies than ever before."
Small business minister Kevin Hollinrake added that the government's Start Up Loans scheme recently granted its 100,000th loan, with 40% of awards going to women. At the same time, the Help to Grow: Management Course is providing business owners with skills.
Access to finance for women business owners is a key focus of the Rose Review. The update said 190 financial services institutions have now signed the Investing in Women Code, up from 134 last year.
The code requires them to adopt best practices to benefit female entrepreneurs and share data on their performance with government.
Recent figures show that less than 2p in every £1 of UK equity funding went to all-female founder businesses in 2022, which was no improvement on 2021.
In 2019, Alison Rose found that the UK economy could be boosted by £250 billion and 1.1 million more businesses if more was done to close the gender gap in British entrepreneurship.
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