Blackburn is a top-ranking town for business, according to new research. Businesses starting up in Blackburn have an advantage over those in much of the rest of the UK, according to the new study.
The nationwide research placed Blackburn in 22nd place nationwide, beating cities many times the size. Cities trailing behind Blackburn included London, Birmingham and Manchester. Furthermore, the vast majority of higher-ranking locations were cities, making Blackburn one of the highest-ranking towns in the UK.
Experts from online magazine Startups Geek found that Blackburn was among the best locations to start a business in northern England. The closest place to score more highly in the study was Liverpool, more than 30 miles away.
StartupsGeek.com, an online platform for creative entrepreneurs and small businesses, reported that Blackburn scored well in the analysis due to several factors including fast internet speed and low start-up business costs. Notably, Blackburn was helped in its ranking by having the fifth-best start-up survival rate in the UK, at 44.1%. Blackburn also ranked well in the research for metrics including broadband download speed and rental price of office space.
It seems that the global pandemic dramatically affected Brits thoughts on wanting to become their own boss. Another study found 20 per cent of people were considering starting their own business or taking on a side job during the lockdown. London, which unsurprisingly has the highest ratio of SMEs per population, was ranked 27th on the list. Despite low internet costs and a large pool of talent from its 24 universities; high salaries, office space costs and survival rate of 39% pushed it down.
As the UK business community attempts to navigate the impact of the first global pandemic in recent history, Startups Geek posed the question: When the economy and the business world regain some measure of normality, where in the UK would be the best place to start a new business?
Their journalists delved into the data and put together their first ever ranking of 40 towns and cities across the UK. The overall winner was Canterbury, with a start-up cost of £757,167 and a five-year survival rate of 41%.
StartupsGeek.com is a specialist digital magazine dedicated to supporting small businesses, startups and creative entrepreneurs, and it recently launched its Funding Finder, a unique database containing details of over 300 funds, grants, business loans and support schemes for small businesses in the UK.
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