SYB May:June 2022 FLIP - Magazine - Page 12
ADVICE
Positive Change for
women in enterprise,
driven by data
The Gender Index is the largest ever
study into female entrepreneurship
in the UK.
Currently, 16.8% of active UK
companies are led by women, and
we are here to significantly increase
that number - driving change
through data.
Our ambition is to create a fairer future by providing a
clear picture of the UK company landscape.
Using a combination of dynamic data and technology
(powered by the mnAI data platform), The Gender
Index has been established to create a benchmark of
the current level of activity undertaken by UK womenled companies.
The real-time data on our website is constantly
refreshed and draws from 4.4 million active UK
companies. It covers gender, UK nations and areas,
sector, investment, fast growth and age of company.
The data can be analysed by any combination of these
filters to produce bespoke reports, all free for everyone
to access. https://www.thegenderindex.co.uk/
springboard for the action needed to stimulate the
growth of women-led companies and their contribution
to the UK economy.
The Gender Index Report 2022 is a digest of the
findings and insights from the academic research for
The Gender Index that has been carried out for us by
leading Business Schools across the UK:
• England – the Enterprise Research Centre and
Warwick University
• Scotland – Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship and
Strathclyde University
• Wales – Cardiff University
• Northern Ireland – Queen’s Belfast University
Here are three of the headlines:
• Currently, 16.8% of all incorporated UK companies are
led by women – but we also know that the numbers
are rising, there’s an upward trend – 20% of new
incorporations in 2021 were women-led companies.
There’s an overall UK narrative, and individual
contributions from all our partners and sponsors. The
report highlights the growth in the number of femaleled companies, and it identifies clear opportunities to
drive positive change.
Health warning – some of the findings are stark:
these are the facts; the benchmark AND they are the
• Venture capital and private equity investments
in female-led companies are less than 1% - huge
opportunities for these investors, eg Investing in
Women Code starting to bite
12 STEER YOUR BUSINESS
• The highest percentages of fast growth femaleled companies are in Wales and Scotland, both at
12% - good things are happening there that can be
modelled elsewhere.
The TGI Report and the full studies by the universities
can be found on our website.
