Impact of women-led businesses

Scotland’s women-led businesses contributed £268 million to the UK’s economy in 2015 with Glasgow generating £67m alone, according to a new study by Royal Bank of Scotland.

The research revealed that female entrepreneurs across Glasgow and Edinburgh set up 3,300 businesses in 2015, with 7,100 launched across all of Scotland.

Figures show 1,900 businesses were launched in Glasgow and another 1,400 were created in Edinburgh.

The combined Dundee/ Stirling/Perth city region covering Dundee, Angus, Perth and Kinross and Stirling local authority areas, was recorded as having 600 female business start-ups in 2015

Manchester at 5,200 and Birmingham with 5,100 had significantly more, however.

In London, 33,200 women-led businesses were created in 2015.

Collectively, female entrepreneurs contributed £3.15 billion to the UK economy overall in 2015, with those in London generating a quarter of the total at £790m.

Glasgow generated £67m, Edinburgh £52m and Dundee/ Stirling/Perth £29m.

The number of women setting up a business in the UK still lags behind countries such as Canada and the US, costing the UK economy £1bn a year.

The proportion of the UK’s female working population starting a business nearly doubled from 3.7% to 7.1% between 2009 and 2012, but has tailed off, falling every year and standing at less than 5% in 2015.

The research, undertaken in partnership with Development Economics, is supported by Office for National Statistics (ONS) data.

It shows the number of firms started by women rose every year between 2006 and 2013 from 58,000 to 139,000, before falling to 116,000 in 2014 and to 126,000 in 2015.

If the UK had sustained 2012’s level of female entrepreneurship growth in subsequent years to reach the levels of its commonwealth counterpart Canada, the UK economy would have enjoyed an additional £1.35bn in 2015.

The proportion of Canadian new female entrepreneurs was 13.5% while the USA figure was 9.2% and Netherlands 7.3%.

The UK rate was 4.7%, Germany 3.3% and Italy 2.8%

Female entrepreneurs are central to the UK’s economy, setting up almost 1.2m firms between 2002 and 2015.

The study found that of all new businesses formed in 2015, around two thirds were set up by men.

Alison Rose, RBS chief executive for corporate, commercial and private banking, said: “We know entrepreneurs are vital to the economy and it’s fantastic to see just how much women contribute.

“We need to do more to power this growth in the same way our global counterparts do.”

She said there were numerous roles within RBS providing tailored support for women to start up and succeed in business.

She added: “It’s not simply about starting up, but supporting through all the business life stages.”

Forfar-born entrepreneur Lesley Eccles, whose US fantasy sports firm Fan Duel was a winner in the 2015 Scottish Business Awards.