Where is the best place to be self employed?
Thursday 10th March 2022
Since the start of the pandemic, the number of people looking into starting their own business has rocketed.
We analysed Google Search data and found that the number of people searching ‘how to start a business’ each month has increased by 12,000 searches a month since March 2020, while the number of people searching ‘how to start a business with no money’ has more than doubled to 10,000 searches a month.
With so many people looking to become their own boss, we thought it would be interesting to find out where the best places to be self employed in the UK and around the world are. Using LinkedIn data, we examined the number of people with the job title ‘founder’ and ‘owner’ and compared it with the overall working population on the social media platform.
Here’s what we found:
Bath has more self-employed people than any other city in the UK, with just under 8% (7.84%) of the working population in the city running their own business.
This is closely followed by Brighton & Hove (7.73%). St Albans (7.31%), Worcester (6.37%) and London (6.35%) also featuring in the top five cities with the highest percentage of business owners.
Aberdeen (3.23%), Coventry (3.31%) and Liverpool (3.59%) were found to be the least entrepreneurial cities in the UK.
The best cities in the UK to be self employed
1. Bath - 7.84%
2. Brighton & Hove - 7.73%
3. St Albans - 7.31%
4. Worcester - 6.37%
5. London - 6.35%
6. Chester - 6.3%
7. Cambridge - 5.89%
8. Edinburgh - 5.74%
9. York - 5.7%
10. Oxford - 5.49%
11. Bristol - 5.48%
12. Chelmsford 5.12%
13. Norwich - 5.12%
14. Exeter - 5.03%
15. Swansea - 4.95%
16. Plymouth - 4.90%
17. Peterborough - 4.71%
18. Cardiff - 4.59%
19. Lincoln - 4.56%
20. Manchester - 4.53%
Around the world, the Netherlands is the best country in the world to start your own business, with 1 in 10 people running their own business. Costa Rica has just under 9% of people with their own business, while Haiti (7.61%), Denmark (7.27%) and USA (7.03%) also feature in the top five countries.
The best countries in the world to be self employed
1. Netherlands - 10.86%
2. Costa Rica - 8.97%
3. Haiti - 7.61%
4. Denmark - 7.27%
5. USA - 7.03%
6. Estonia - 6.95%
7. Israel - 6.69%
8. New Zealand - 6.59%
9. Poland - 6.45%
10. Finland - 6.43%
11. Greece - 6.20%
12. Sweden - 6.14%
13. Canada - 5.74%
14. Ireland - 5.59%
15. Lebanon - 5.54%
16. Croatia - 5.36%
17. Bulgaria- 5.08%
18. Switzerland - 5.08%
19. Australia - 5.08%
20. Iceland - 5%
Methodology
Google Search data statistics were gained by analysing a number of the most searched for questions by people looking to start a new business using Glimpse.
To find out the best places to be self employed, we looked at the number of people working in major British cities and countries around the world. We then compared this to the number of people in each location with the job title ‘founder’ or ‘owner’ to calculate the percentage of workers running their own business.
