The State of the Nation: The UK Family Business Sector 2020-21
The family business sector is vital to the UK economy. This report presents key insights into the UK family business sector and quantifies its economic importance.
Family-owned firms made up the majority of private sector businesses in the UK. There were 5.2 million businesses that were family-owned in 2019, which was 86.2% of the total. They contributed £637 billion to UK GDP. We estimate that family firms employed over 14.2 million people and paid £205 billion in tax receipts.
This new report investigates the family business sector’s characteristics and the challenges they perceived they faced. It explores whether family ownership of a firm affects its use of technology. We found no evidence that family firms in 2019 were less likely to use technology than non-family owned firms once other factors had been taken into account.
About the team
Our economic consulting team are world leaders in quantitative economic analysis, working with clients around the globe and across sectors to build models, forecast markets and evaluate interventions using state-of-the art techniques. The lead consultant on this project was:
