State of Small Business Britain Report 2024 : Rising to the Challenge

Last week we published the latest State of Small Business Britain report , our annual review of trends and issues affecting the UK’s small businesses, drawing together ERC research from the past year. These are testing times for small businesses. Recent years have seen them have to confront a range of challenges, including a global pandemic and its many after-effects. At the same time, rapid technological and social change is creating new possibilities for businesses. But the past few years has also been marked by instability and fragmentation in terms of business support and a decline in key aspects of the small business ecosystem.

Our report sets out what we think are the priority areas for action going forward, based on the research evidence, including:

• Challenging management mindsets
• Encouraging and enabling more innovation
• Investing in the business support system