Britain hits record half a million start-ups

Research from the national enterprise campaign shows 502,068 businesses have already been started, making the country on target hit 523,410 by the end of the year.

Emma Jones, co-founder of StartUp Britain said: “We’ve done it! Half a million new businesses have already been registered this year!

“We’ve been looking at these figures carefully for three years since the campaign began and it’s clear the UK’s start-up community is fit and healthy – and shows no sign of abating.”

According to Government statistics, micro and small businesses represent 95 per cent of all companies and employ more than seven million people in the UK.

The figures come direct from StartUp Britain’s Daily tracker, an online tool which reveals the number of businesses registered with Companies House on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.

Last year 484,224 businesses were started, compared to 440,600 in 2011.

The numbers are verified by Companies House and 2013’s figures will be audited in March 2014.