A new study aimed to identify emerging business hubs across the UK, particularly outside busy cities with well-established corporate infrastructures.
It found that Belfast topped the list in Northern Ireland, but that Mid and East Antrim is only 0.34% behind, thanks to the high rate of new businesses being launched in the past year compared to pre-pandemic levels.
This is even more impressive against the backdrop of a nationwide 8.21% decrease in startup creation during the same period.
The research, carried out by a leading UK packaging supplier, Carrier Bag Shop, compares how many businesses launched across 406 UK locations and regions in the past year versus before the coronavirus outbreak. They analysed quarterly reports from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on new business enterprises opened between the third quarter of 2017 and the second quarter of 2024.
‘New business’ capitals in every UK region/country
In Northern Ireland, Belfast had the highest increase in new businesses being set up in the past year compared to pre-pandemic levels. Between mid-2017 until mid-2018, there were 1,015 new businesses registered there. This grew by 17.73% to 1,195 between mid-2023 until mid-2024.
Mid and East Antrim ranked second in Northern Ireland for startup increases. There were 17.39% more startups last year (405) compared to six years before (345).
In total, Northern Ireland had 5,765 new businesses set up last year, a 0.79% uptick from 5,720 two years prior to the COVID-19 lockdown. To put this in perspective, this rate was at minus 8.21% in the UK, from 344,365 businesses set up between July 2017 until June 2018 down to 316,095 in July 2023 until June 2024. In England, things were slightly less pessimistic, with a 6.7% decrease in new businesses being registered in the past year compared to 2017-2018.
Sujan Shah, CEO of Carrier Bag Shop, comments on the findings:
“In the first year after our lockdown started, we saw a 7.86% increase across the UK in new businesses being set up. Increased use of remote working, a turbulent job market, and the economic and emotional impact of Covid-19 may have spurred the leap towards entrepreneurship.
“After this momentum slowed down for almost another year, it makes mid-2022 until mid-2023 look as if setting up new ventures reduced sharply by 15.72%. In fact, entrepreneurship was simply more accelerated during the more intense lockdown periods. It seemed like the stricter the lockdown, the more entrepreneurial it made us.
“That is why comparing the statistics from two years on either side of the pandemic offered us a unique perspective into the areas that have since flourished as great places to set up a business. This can either be a result of local authorities’ efforts to encourage entrepreneurship, cost-effective business infrastructure or new business owners seeing great potential in these areas off the beaten path. Either way, we aimed to find these hidden gems for anyone still unsure where to set up shop locally, without having to move to big cities.”
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