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20 things
Kensington Mortgages’ Self-Employed Index
21 July 2007
1 The Kensington Self-Employed Index has shown confidence was high among Britain’s self-employed workers, despite five Base Rate rises in the last 12 months impacting on their businesses.
2 The index revealed that 67 per cent of self-employed people are confident about business prospects for the next six months – up from 64 per cent last quarter.
3 More than 52 per cent of business owners, aged between 35 and 44 years old, expected their turnover to increase in the next year.
4 However, the index also revealed that the rising interest rate environment has affected how the self-employed were running their businesses.
5 More people are now looking to control their overheads and expected to increase their marketing spend in order to maintain turnover.
6 Of those questioned, 74 per cent of business owners said they do not plan to recruit more staff over the next 12 months – up from 68 per cent last quarter.
7 A quarter said they will not be investing in new materials, equipment, vehicles or training in the next year – up from one fifth last quarter.
8 A further 13 per cent of business owners said they will definitely have to increase their marketing activity to maintain their previous year’s turnover.
9 When it comes to investing extra financial resource into their business, nearly half of business owners planned to dig into their own resources.
10 Of those planning to do so, 46 per cent will use personal savings.
11 The most confident age bracket was between the ages of 35 and 44.
12 Of that age group, 34 per cent claimed to be ‘very confident’ about their firm’s prospects.
13 It appeared that female business owners are slightly more bullish about turnover than their male counterparts, with 46 per cent of self-employed women expecting it to increase compared to 43 per cent of men.
14 The findings came from the third Kensington Self-Employed Index, launched to track the mood, expectations and behaviour of the self-employed with research carried out and published every quarter.
15 This quarter’s index was carried out by talking to more than 500 self-employed people.
16 It found that 67 per cent of the self-employed population was male and the most popular age group for people to be self-employed was between 35 and 54 years old.
17 Just under two-thirds – 62 per cent – of business owners are in the ABC1 social grade, and three-quarters are either married or living as married.
18 Ian Giles, director of marketing at Kensington Mortgages, said: “The Kensington Self-Employed Index has already shown how bullish Britain’s business owners are about their prospects, and this latest batch of research shows that they have the shrewdness to justify that confidence.”
19 Giles went on to say no business was resistant to external influences and, when circumstances changed, successful businesses that were able to react to those circumstances would come back stronger than ever before.
20 Giles concluded: “With rising rates, the cost of borrowing is increasing and so more business owners are turning to their own personal savings to invest in their future success. This can have a knock-on effect on their own finances and so there is a growing opportunity for brokers to help the self-employed adapt to the changing economic environment by providing sound financial advice.”
