International Womens Day 2021: Female run small businesses grow 18% in the last five years

As the world marks International Women’s Day this year – celebrating how far women have come in society, in politics and in economics – Simply Business can reveal that more women than ever are running their own small business.

Analysis of over 500,000 small businesses by SME insurer Simply Business, shows that while there are still a greater number of SMEs owned by men, female small business owners are rising at a significantly faster rate. The amount of females taking out policies increased the most within home baking, takeaway food and courier businesses.

Female-owned SMEs rose by 18% since 2017, compared to 14% growth in male-owned small businesses for the same period. What’s more, according to Simply Business, Female-owned SMEs now account for 29% of all the small businesses in the UK.

Bea Montoya, Chief Operating Officer at Simply Business, commented: “International Women’s Day is hugely important in providing positive recognition of women all around the world. So we are delighted to mark this day by sharing that this year we are seeing more women than ever following their big dream and being their own boss – whether that’s turning a hobby into a livelihood, or using years of professional experience to do it alone.

“Small businesses are vital to our economy and will be at the heart of our collective recovery from the pandemic. Our data shows that increasingly it’s women who are leading the way. And given the number of female-owned small businesses continues to rise consistently year-on-year, we can only expect this to continue into 2022 and beyond.

“At Simply Business, we’re proud to support the thousands of remarkable women up and down the country who have stepped up to run successful and thriving small businesses.”

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Methodology:
Data taken from 531,426 small business insurance policies from 2017-2020
Data extracted March 2021.

For further information, please contact:

Frank PR
+44 20 7693 7433
[email protected]

About Simply Business

Simply Business is one of the UK’s biggest business insurance providers, specialising in public liability insurance for SMEs and insuring over 900,000 small businesses and landlords across Britain.

Launched in 2005, Simply Business provides an online brokerage service, delivering policies tailored to individual business requirements. Using the power of tech and data to create the best possible customer experiences, Simply Business employs over 800 people across offices in London, Northampton, and Boston in the US.

Owing to its internal underwriting capability, Simply Business can cover over 1,000 trade types – ranging from plumbers to accountants to dog walkers. An accredited B Corp for their positive social impact, Simply Business has also been voted the Sunday Times Best Company To Work For twice in a row.