Small business confidence holds firm

The day after the Government announced its three-tier Covid restrictions, our new Business Barometer research suggests the avoidance of a second national lockdown and certainty of direction until March has had a positive impact on UK small business confidence.

The UK’s re-emergence from lockdown in July 2020 saw a sharp resurgence in confidence, with the percentage of small business owners predicting growth for the next three months doubling to 27%. The latest data conducted last week reveals that the percentage of small businesses predicting significant and modest growth remains unchanged since summer months (27%).

Further, the Q4 data reveals the third consecutive quarter where the percentage of small businesses fearing collapse has fallen – down from a high of 29% in Q2 2020 to a current figure of 12% for Q4 2020

(The research was conducted by YouGov among a representative sample of 1,266 small business decision makes in October 2020 spanning industry sectors).