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?10m Britons will own businesses by 2011?

A third of the British population will start up their own business in the next five years, according to research from Vodafone UK.

There are currently three million people in the UK who have set up their own business, and this is predicted to rise to 10 million by 2011. Six per cent of UK adults are in the process of starting up their own company, 12% have already done so, and 33% are ‘seriously considering it’.

The biggest social catalyst for setting up a business is starting a family, as people look for more flexibility in their working hours and a business that they can hand down to their children. Redundancy sparks more than one in four start-ups, and divorce or reaching a landmark birthday also appear to trigger entrepreneurial ventures.

The study also revealed that there were six ‘entrepreneurial hot spots’ in the UK - Brighton, Belfast, Bristol, Southampton, Plymouth and London. These cities have the largest percentage of their populations who run their own businesses. Scotland and Liverpool are noted as having particularly low levels of entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .