It is easy to believe that entrepreneurship in Britain is struggling.
High interest rates, uncertain consumer demand, taxation, regulation and geopolitical instability create a difficult environment for anyone considering starting a business. Yet one of the most interesting pieces of recent UK business news tells a different story.
Britain registered 388,922 new companies during the first half of 2026.
That represents a 9% increase compared with the same period in 2025 and equates to approximately 90 new businesses being incorporated every hour.
Entrepreneurship in Britain appears remarkably resilient.
Entrepreneurship thrives on change
The important question is why.
Entrepreneurial opportunities frequently emerge precisely when established markets are changing.
Artificial intelligence is transforming professional services. Cybersecurity requirements are creating new markets. The energy transition is reshaping infrastructure and manufacturing. Defence investment is generating demand across supply chains. Universities continue to produce intellectual property capable of becoming commercial ventures.
Each transition creates problems requiring solutions.
Entrepreneurs recognise those problems as opportunities.
A striking recent example is manufacturing start-up Isembard, which has opened a 160,000-square-foot factory close to Tower Bridge in London. The company intends to manufacture components for drones, submarines, robots, rockets and jet engines, using software-driven manufacturing methods. It currently employs around 35 people and reportedly expects that figure to reach approximately 200 next year.
This is entrepreneurship applied to one of Britain’s oldest industries: manufacturing.
Capital is still looking for entrepreneurs
Investment is also continuing.
On 23 September, the British Business Bank announced a £50 million commitment to Phoenix Court, alongside institutional investors including M&G, NatWest and HSBC. The objective is to provide growth capital to British technology and science companies capable of scaling internationally.
Earlier in September, a further £210 million South East Investment Fund was launched, offering loans between £25,000 and £2 million and equity investments of up to £5 million for growing SMEs.
These developments matter because entrepreneurship requires more than ideas.
It requires an ecosystem containing finance, skills, customers, universities, infrastructure, mentors and experienced founders.
The UK already possesses many of these ingredients.
Indeed, the UK remains the world’s third-largest venture capital market behind the United States and China.
Entrepreneurship is spreading beyond traditional clusters
Perhaps the most encouraging development is the geographical spread of entrepreneurial activity.
London, Oxford and Cambridge remain important innovation centres, yet entrepreneurial capability is increasingly visible across Britain.
Recent analysis has highlighted how successful British technology companies can become what might be described as “founder factories”. People learn how to build teams, raise investment, develop products and enter international markets inside growing companies. Some subsequently use that experience to establish businesses of their own.
That effect is increasingly visible in cities including Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, York and Warrington.
Entrepreneurial ecosystems can therefore become self-reinforcing.
One successful company creates experienced employees. Those employees become founders, investors, advisers and mentors. Their businesses create another generation of entrepreneurial talent.
The nature of entrepreneurship is also changing
The next generation of UK businesses may look very different from those created even ten years ago.
AI allows small teams to automate administration, undertake sophisticated analysis, develop software rapidly and reach international customers. Cloud infrastructure reduces the capital required to launch technology businesses. Digital marketplaces provide immediate routes to customers.
This creates the possibility of the highly leveraged entrepreneur: a founder capable of achieving significant economic output with a comparatively small organisation.
That could dramatically widen participation in entrepreneurship.
Britain still has entrepreneurs
Britain undoubtedly faces economic challenges. Entrepreneurship, however, should be judged partly by how people respond to those challenges.
Nearly 389,000 company registrations in six months suggest that hundreds of thousands of people are still prepared to identify opportunities, accept uncertainty and attempt to build something.
The bigger policy question therefore concerns what happens next.
Starting companies is important. Helping the strongest of them survive, innovate, employ people, export and scale is where much of the long-term economic value will be created.
Entrepreneurship is alive and well in the UK. Our next challenge is creating an environment in which more of those 90 businesses being created every hour can become the successful employers, exporters and innovators of the next decade.
