Five tech start-ups launched per hour in 2019

Contributing to these stats was a growing number of tech start-ups, with Companies House data revealing that over five new such start-ups popped up every hour in 2019.  

“It is encouraging that despite a politically turbulent year in which business confidence hit new lows, business formations continued to set records,” said Matt Smith, director of policy and research at the Centre for Entrepreneurs, in the centre’s sixth annual analysis of Companies House data.

“It suggests that entrepreneurial spirit is well and truly embedded across the UK with entrepreneurs continuing to turn their ideas into action”.

Over 45,000 tech start-ups were launched across the UK in 2019, representing 6.6 per cent of all new businesses.

London had the highest number of new company formations with 221,373 launched in 2019, up 2.4 per cent on the year. Birmingham continued to outperform Manchester in absolute terms (14,509 v 9,064) – the latter is more entrepreneurial when considering population size.

Looking at tech start-ups alone, 17,401 of these were registered in London (8.2 per cent of total), while 28 per cent of all new businesses launched in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch were tech orientated.

Companies were launched in over 700 different industries, as varied as raising of llamas and alpacas (10 new businesses), credit bureaus (23), driving schools (429) and repair of watches and jewellery (141).

As evidence of the impact that food delivery start-ups and street food are having, 14,363 new take-away food shops and mobile food stands registered in 2019, greatly outnumbering both licensed restaurants (9,405) and unlicensed restaurants and cafes (7,182). Ten new wine producers, 314 brewing companies, and 347 distillery businesses also launched in the year.