Family Business Scale-ups: Breaking Barriers to Growth
Introduction
According to the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) Business Population Estimates 6 in 2025, there were 5.7 million private-sector businesses in the UK. The vast majority of these businesses, more than 75%, are non-employers (4.3 million), while 1.2 million have fewer than ten employees; 220,000 are small businesses (10–49 employees); 38,000 are medium-sized businesses (50–249 employees); and 8,000 are large (with more than 250 employees).
It is widely acknowledged that family businesses comprise a large proportion of all UK enterprises, with many studies looking at the composition of the UK business population to assess overall numbers. In many cases these studies classify all businesses without employees as a family business by virtue of them having a single owner/director. However, to estimate the wider landscape with employees, they utilise survey data as a proxy to calculate the proportion of each business size classification (micro, small, medium and large) that could be considered as family businesses. The most recent studies using this method conclude that more than 1 million UK firms with employees are family-owned: more than 70% of all businesses with employees. In total, when adding in those firms without employees, they conclude that more than 90% of the private sector can be considered to be family businesses. While these studies provide a useful snapshot of the economy, there are some limitations in the methods used and thus the representativeness of the data, especially when seeking to segment the data by sector, region and economic contribution.
This new research that FBUK has commissioned with the ScaleUp Institute is designed to shine a light on mid-market and scaling family businesses that are spread across the country and, for the first time, to assess family businesses in these areas using firm-level data from Companies House. By assessing each firm based on their own filings, we are able to bring together further insights into the landscape of these businesses, including trends in growth and investment. Over the next few sections of this report we discuss the dynamics of the 760,000 family businesses registered at Companies House that can be identified, with a critical focus on those that are operating in the mid-market and scaling-up sectors. Focusing on these segments enables a more detailed examination of how family businesses grow, invest and engage with policy environments. Chapters five and six provide additional insights into the challenges facing family businesses as they seek to grow and expand, with evidence from the 2025 ScaleUp Institute Survey and case-study interviews with family business leaders.
6 Business population estimates 2025 – GOV.UK
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