LIVERPOOL was beaten by neighbours Manchester and Warrington for the number of business start ups in 2014, figures released today reveal.
Manchester was in third place nationally – after London and Birmingham – with 13,054 new businesses created on its cobbled streets.
Warrington also made the top 10, gaining eighth place with 7,529 businesses started in 2014.
Liverpool core city rivals Bristol, Sheffield, Nottingham (all in the top 10) Leeds (12th) and Cardiff (16th) were all ahead of Liverpool which was in 18th place with 6,032 start-ups.
Across the UK more than 581,000 new businesses were created in 2014, making it a record year for start-ups, the figures reveal. It shows the equivalent of almost 1,600 new enterprises were registered every day of the year across the UK.
Greater London maintained its status as the powerhouse of the UK with 184,671 businesses registered last year, according to the monitoring campaign group StartUp Britain.
Britain’s second biggest city, Birmingham, welcomed a record 18,337 new businesses in 2014, more than 2,000 higher than in 2013.
StartUp Britain, the national enterprise campaign run by the think-tank Centre for Entrepreneurs, say the total number of new businesses launched last year was almost 50,000 more than in 2013 and 97,000 more than in 2012.
StartUp Britain tracked figures from Companies House, the official registerer for all businesses in the UK.
Models
The Centre for Entrepreneurs said the clear upward trend in the number of businesses set up outside the London area was positive news for the health of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Britain.
Serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson, chairman of the Centre for Entrepreneurs, said: “Starting a business is easier, quicker and cheaper than ever thanks to new technology. Entrepreneurs have higher profiles than in the past and are seen as role models. Traditional jobs for life have largely disappeared, as have occupational pensions.”
The centre cited figures published in The Sunday Times yesterday showing the number companies failures dropped by six percent in 2014, again using figures from Companies House.
Other provincial cities in the top 10 were Brighton, 8,344 start-ups, Glasgow 8,173, Bristol 8,130, Sheffield 8,052, Nottingham 7,641, Warrington 7,529 and Scotland’s capital Edinburgh in 10th place with 7,480 new businesses. Northern Ireland’s capital city, Belfast, was in 15th place with 6,369 start-ups.
StartUp Britain campaign is backed by the British Government but operates as a fully private sector supported venture. It was founded by eight individuals and business owners in 2011 "to inspire, accelerate and celebrate entrepreneurship".
