ERC/NEN Micro Business Roundtable
On 12th June, we joined forces with the National Enterprise Network to hold a Micro Business Roundtable event at The Shard. In 2024, there were over 1.2 million micro businesses in the UK, employing around 4.2 million people. Despite their significance to the economy and society, micro businesses are often excluded from national and international surveys. This exclusion creates gaps in our understanding of these businesses, particularly regarding the factors that influence their growth and productivity. These gaps have significant implications for the visibility of microbusinesses and the development of related policies.
This roundtable brought together a group of stakeholders with an interest in micro businesses to identify the most significant knowledge gaps and explore how these might be addressed moving forward. In particular, we considered the potential value of a new survey instrument focused specifically on micro businesses.
There was a lively discussion, and key questions discussed included:
- What information do we have access to about micro businesses, what is the quality of this and how could we use it better?
- What are the main data/information gaps relating to micro businesses?
- We know that micro businesses are excluded from several important business data sources. What are the implications of this?
- How could we use research data and insights better to inform practice in supporting micro businesses?
An action from the meeting was to form a new working group to develop better data on micro businesses. The ERC will also undertake a data audit on existing micro business data coverage ahead of the first meeting of the working group. If you are interested in taking part in the working group, please contact Vicki Belt
