On 2 October 2013 Björn Lindvall posted a graphic about UK SMEs by region and gave publishers code to display it on their own sites. The replacement chart below uses the regional figures from the government release cited on that page. Figure 9 counts private-sector businesses of all sizes, including those without employees. It provides context for the SME market without claiming an exact count of SMEs alone.
Where businesses were based at the start of 2012
| UK country or English region | Businesses (thousands, rounded) |
|---|---|
| London | 806 |
| South East | 768 |
| East of England | 512 |
| North West | 478 |
| South West | 432 |
| West Midlands | 369 |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | 345 |
| East Midlands | 325 |
| Scotland | 319 |
| Wales | 193 |
| North East | 133 |
| Northern Ireland | 114 |
London and the South East together accounted for approximately 1.57 million businesses on this measure. These are estimates of the business population, rather than a count of applications for credit. To explore the former firm’s research on borrowing, see the historical credit collection.
Share the graphic
Paste this HTML into your page to display the chart and link readers to the data table and sources.
<a href="https://creditsquare.co.uk/sme-infographic-uk-regions-2012/">
<img src="https://creditsquare.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/SME-Finance-in-the-UK.png"
alt="UK business population by region at the start of 2012" width="540" style="max-width:100%;height:auto">
</a>
Sources and further reading
- Historical CreditSquare page (Wayback Machine) — checked 2026-11-08
- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Business Population Estimates 2012 — checked 2026-11-08
- Figure 9, page 13 of the statistical release — checked 2026-11-08