Southampton is the best city for independent businesses in the UK

There has been a massive growth in small businesses across the UK over the past five years. In fact, more than 800,000 new business registrations have been made since 2018/19. This represents an impressive 3.5% increase in growth, but things slowed down when the pandemic kicked off and lockdowns began at the start of 2020.

COVID-19 had a huge effect on small businesses, causing thousands in the UK to close. Despite the UK embracing the ‘new normal’ and staycation bookings skyrocketing, businesses can't always rely on tourists and residents from neighbouring cities to shop locally.

To help small business owners work out where to set up shop, Bionic created an index using nine different metrics to discover where in the UK is most fruitful for independent businesses.

The results also reveal where in the UK is the best city for budding business owners to start and run their own local independent venture, and how you can continue to support them.

The index analysed 50 of the largest cities in the UK using nine different metrics to assess how strong each cities 'Indie Economy' is. The result revealed that Southampton is the best UK city for independent businesses.

The cities were each assigned an index score out of 100 based on a combination of the below data points from ONS and Centre for Cities:

Business start-ups per 10,000 population in 2019

Five-year survival rate

Births of new businesses as a proportion of total active businesses (2019)

Deaths on new business as a proportion of total active businesses (2019)

% of small active businesses

Active businesses 10,000 population (business density)

Commuting on foot (%)

Unemployment claimant count rate November 2020 (%)

Rateable value per m2 of floor space

The index found that Southampton is the best city for independent businesses with a score of 74 out of 100 - the perfect location for would-be business owners.

The data revealed that Southampton has a whopping 91.98% active small businesses in the UK, putting it just behind the UK's capital, London. Southampton also featured among the UK cities with the highest number of business start-ups per capita, with 79 of them for every 10,000 people.

Starting a new business is certainly at the forefront of people's minds in Southampton. Since 2019 small businesses have been popping up all over Southampton, such as Porter's Wine and Charcuterie, a wine bar situated on Queen’s Terrace. Google search volume data also found there has been a whopping 100% search increase in the last 12 months for people searching ‘small businesses in Southampton’.

For those googling how to start a business, there are a number of grants available from the government that can help people start their own businesses. For example, The Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) enables smaller businesses to access finance more quickly to help with recovery from the coronavirus outbreak.

Source: Bionic.co.uk