SME Research & Statistics in the UK

Small Business Research Portal
This portal has been designed to provide links to internet sites that will be helpful to small business researchers, policy-makers and support agencies. "The objective is to make this site the definitive portal for small business research."

Small Business Research Trust
Based at the Open University Business School, it is "an educational research charity, aiming to advance the education of the public in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises in the United Kingdom and Europe." Details of its publications are given on the site, for example reports on ICT in rural areas of the EU, ethnic minorities in business, and lists of UK researchers on small businesses.

Small Business Service Research Team
Aims to generate, gather, co-ordinate and swiftly disseminate quality research relevant to small firms in the UK. Current SBS Research activities are detailed in the Quarterly Newsletter & reports can be downloaded.

Small Business Statistics - UK
Useful page of statistics from the Small Business Service.
eg Business start-ups and closures is a good starting point if you want to find out about the number of business start-ups and closures in the UK regions. The statistics can be downloaded in pdf format.

Bank of England Quarterly Reports on Small Business
Provide a quarterly round-up of published data and survey evidence concerning the small business sector. The Bank also publishes reports on the financing of SMEs.

Lifting the Barriers to Growth
Survey of 18,000 small firms by the Federation of Small Businesses FSB - download the results for Wales & other UK regions. May 2002.

2001 E-commerce Survey of Business
The first stage of results for the 2001 e-commerce survey of UK businesses by the Office for National Statistics ONS is now available as a PDF file. The survey of 12,000 businesses of all sizes across most of the economy indicates that in 2001 50 per cent of UK businesses were online.