Official Statistics

National Survey of Businesses wave 1: executive summary

Published 15 October 2026

1. Introduction

This summary presents selected findings from wave 1 of the National Survey of Businesses (NSB), a new survey by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST). Wave 1 fieldwork took place between June and August 2026, with 1,019 senior representatives of UK businesses with employees.

1.1 About the survey

The NSB provides evidence on a wide range of BIST’s policy areas, including both domestic business policy and international trade. It replaces the former National Survey of Registered Businesses (NSRB), which focused primarily on international trade.

The survey is representative of UK private sector businesses with employees. It does not cover businesses without employees or public sector organisations. In the rest of this summary, where we refer to ‘businesses’, these are specifically private businesses with employees.

The survey is expected to run every 3 to 4 months, with 4 waves undertaken every 12 months. Some questions will be asked in every wave to help track changes over time, while others will be asked less frequently. Later waves may also include new questions to focus on emerging policy priorities.

Each wave will be reported on with an executive summary. There will also be a technical report of the survey methodology published every 4 waves, and a comprehensive findings report published every 8 waves. The findings report will cover detailed themes, subgroup differences and trends over time across a 2-year period. Specific technical details for wave 1 are included at the end of this summary.

The NSB is an official statistic and has been produced to the standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics and BIST’s Standards for Official Statistics.

If you have any questions on the NSB or the contents of this summary, they can contact BIST at: NSB@businessandtrade.gov.uk.

1.2 Contents of this summary

This summary focuses on selected findings from wave 1, covering specific questions. The complete set of results for every question asked in wave 1 is available in the accompanying attachment National Survey of Businesses wave 1: data tables. This includes breakdowns by business size, sector and region.

This wave’s summary covers the following topics expected to be asked every wave:

• characteristics of UK businesses, including business structure, ownership and trading activity

• business growth expectations

The summary also covers the following topics expected to be asked regularly but not every wave:

• challenges affecting business performance

• international trade and exporting

• awareness of changes to employment rights

• awareness of specific free trade agreements (FTA)

The following topics were also covered in the wave 1 survey but are not included in this summary. These results are available in the accompanying data tables. These topics may be repeated in future waves where relevant:

• the proportion of businesses that are franchisees

• the investment intentions of overseas owners and investors in UK businesses

• additional findings on exporting, including knowledge, attitudes and support needs and future export plans

• awareness of the government’s Small Business Plan

• how staff are informed about their trade union rights

1.3 Interpreting the findings

Weighting

Percentages are based on weighted data to be representative of the wider business population. However, the base sizes shown at charts and tables are unweighted and indicate the number of businesses that answered the relevant question.

Summing of percentages

Percentages across this report may not sum exactly to 100%, for various reasons. Firstly, they are rounded to the nearest whole number. Secondly, they may exceed 100% at questions where businesses could give more than one response. Finally, some reported percentages and charts do not show the proportion answering ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Prefer not to say’, in order to focus solely on the main insights from the findings.

Rebasing of certain data

The business size (number of employees), age and turnover distributions reported here have been rebased to exclude ‘Don’t know’ and ‘Prefer not to say’ responses. For these factual business characteristics, these responses are effectively missing data, and rebasing is done to avoid distorting the reported figures in a misleading way.

Reporting of subgroups

In order to summarise the main findings, there is not extensive subgroup analysis in this report.

However, across most questions, the findings differed substantially between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (with 1 to 249 employees) and large businesses (with more than 250 employees), so these differences have been included. Where we show SMEs and large businesses on charts, we have not shown the overall results alongside these, since these overall results are the same as for SMEs.

Reflecting that large businesses account for around 1% of the total business population. In a small number of places, we have included further subgroup differences where these add insight. In all instances, the reported subgroup differences are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level and supported by robust unweighted base sizes.

2. Business profile and analytical context

This section covers factual information about the business population captured in the survey.

2.1 Business profile and characteristics

The survey data is weighted to be representative of the total population of UK businesses with employees. As such, the majority of the weighted sample is made up of micro businesses with 1 to 9 employees, those with over 10 years of trading history and businesses with under £500,000 in annual turnover.

The size, age and turnover distributions have been rebased to exclude ‘Don’t know’ and ‘Prefer not to say’ responses. For these factual business characteristics, these responses are effectively missing data, and rebasing is done to avoid distorting the reported figures in a misleading way. Percentages may still not sum exactly to 100% because of rounding:

• reflecting the government’s Business Population Estimates, 81% were micro businesses with 1 to 9 employees. A further 16% were small (10 to 49 employees), 3% were medium (50 to 249 employees) and 1% were large (250 or more employees)

• 82% had been trading for at least 10 years, 12% for 5 to 10 years, and 6% for less than 5 years

• 59% of businesses reported an annual turnover of less than £500,000, 35% were between £500,000 and £5 million, and 6% reported turnover of £5 million or more

• 71% of businesses sold services, 38% sold physical goods, including goods sold online, while 5% sold digital goods – goods that exist only in digital form. Businesses could select more than one category

Businesses were also asked about how they viewed their stage of development. Responses reflect businesses’ own assessments and do not use formal definitions of start-up or scale-up businesses. Nine in 10 businesses (90%) described themselves as ‘mature’. This included 49% that described themselves as mature and aiming to grow or expand, and 41% that described themselves as mature but not aiming to grow or expand. A further 4% described themselves as ‘start-up’ businesses, and 4% as ‘scale-up’ businesses.

A small proportion of businesses (4%) were fully or partially foreign owned. For the purposes of this survey, this meant that a non-UK company or non-UK investors owned at least 10% of the business, its shares or its voting rights.

A total of 1% were franchisees.

2.2 Industrial Strategy sectors

The government’s Modern Industrial Strategy identifies 8 sectors (the Industrial Strategy 8, or IS-8) with high potential for economic growth. These are:

• Advanced Manufacturing – any business that integrates advanced science and technology, including digital and automation, into its manufacturing production processes

• Clean Energy Industries – any business that is part of the supply chain, manufacturing or services relating to the deployment, construction or maintenance of clean energy assets and products

• Creative Industries – any business that uses individual creativity, skill or talent, and which has a potential for wealth and job creation through generating or using intellectual property

• Defence – any business that directly supports the production or delivery of goods or services (including subcontracted work) for UK or international defence customers

• Digital and Technologies – any business that develops or applies advanced technologies and digital tools to drive transformative changes in the economy or society

• Financial Services – any business that manages money or provides financial services to individuals, businesses and governments

• Life Sciences – any business involved in developing or producing pharmaceutical or medical technology products

• Professional and Business Services – any business that provides specialist advice and support, primarily to other businesses, to help them to maintain and grow their operations

Businesses were shown these simplified definitions of these 8 sectors that matched the government’s definitions, and were asked whether they operated in any of them. Findings therefore reflect businesses’ self-identification with these sectors.

Two in 5 businesses (40%) identified themselves as operating in at least one of the sectors, and 13% identified themselves as operating in more than one of them. Professional and Business Services was the most common (18%), followed by Creative Industries (12%) and Digital and Technologies (9%).

Large businesses were more likely than SMEs to identify as operating in Advanced Manufacturing, Defence and Life Sciences (15%, 17% and 13% respectively, compared to 7%, 5% and 3% of SMEs). It should be noted that a total of 64 large businesses took part in wave 1, so these results have a wider margin of error.

Figure 2.1: Proportion of businesses that operated in each of the following Industrial Strategy 8 (IS-8) sectors

At least one IS-8 sector	40%
Professional and Business Services	18%
Creative Industries	12%
Clean Energy Industries	9%
Digital and Technologies	9%
Advanced Manufacturing	7%
Defence	5%
Financial Services	5%
Life Sciences	3%

^{Unweighted base: 1,019 UK businesses with employees
Question label and wording: Q_IS8. Does your business operate in any of the following sectors? You can say if you think you belong to more than one, or if you don’t below to any.}

3. Business outlook and issues affecting performance

This section examines businesses’ performance expectations and the main issues they expected to affect their performance over the next 12 months.

3.1 Businesses’ performance expectations

Just under 2 in 5 businesses (37%) expected their performance to improve, while a slightly higher proportion (42%) expected it to remain the same. 1 in 5 (19%) expected their performance to worsen over the coming 12 months. Large businesses were more likely than SMEs to expect their performance to improve (66% compared with 37%) and less likely to expect it to worsen (9% compared with 19%).

Figure 3.1: Businesses’ expectations of their performance over the next 12 months

Organisation type	Improve	Stay the same	Worsen
SMEs	37%	42%	19%
Large businesses	66%	19%	14%

^{Unweighted bases: 946 SMEs with 1 to 249 employees; 64 large businesses with 250+ employees
Question label and wording: Q_GROWTH. Over the next 12 months, do you expect your business’s overall performance to improve, stay the same, or worsen?
N.B. ‘Don’t know’ responses (2% for SMEs and 1% for large businesses) are included in the base but not shown in the chart. Large business results are based on 64 responses so have a wider margin of error.}

Among the 4% of businesses with foreign ownership, views on inward investment were mixed. Around one-quarter expected their foreign owners or investors to expand investment in IT hardware or software (25%) or workforce or payroll (24%) over the next 12 months. However, 19% agreed that their foreign owners or investors were prioritising expansion in other countries over the UK.

3.2 Main barriers or challenges affecting business performance

Businesses reported a range of issues that they expected to affect their business performance in the coming 12 months:

• 6 in 10 businesses (60%) identified barriers or challenges relating to the UK’s economic situation, which incorporated answers such as economic performance, rising costs in general, energy or fuel prices, and inflation

• 3 in 10 (29%) mentioned barriers specific to their industry, such as declining demand, regulations or red tape, changing customer preferences or needs, and supply chain challenges

• nearly a quarter (24%) identified factors or changes within their business as a main barrier or challenge

• 10% identified barriers or challenges relating to the current international situation, such as global instability, wars, exchange rates and customs processes

• 3% mentioned issues relating to artificial intelligence or automation

The broad categories mentioned previously, can be broken down into more specific response areas. Of these, the top recurring issues were high or rising costs in general (25%) and high taxes, National Insurance or business rates (22%). The top specific response areas are shown in Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2: Main barriers or challenges expected to affect business performance over the next 12 months

High or rising costs generally	25%
High taxes, National Insurance or business rates	22%
Changes in the UK’s economic performance	15%
Staff recruitment, retention or management	12%
Regulation or red tape	10%
Declining industry sector or market demand	10%
Changes in energy or fuel prices	9%
Lack of cash flow or access to finance	8%
Changes in inflation or prices	8%
Changes in customer preferences or needs	8%

^{Unweighted base: 1,019 UK businesses with employees
Question label and wording: Q_GROWTHCHALLENGES. Over the next 12 months, what will be the main barriers or challenges that will affect how well your business performs? If more than one, please give your top 2 or 3.
N.B. Only the 10 most common specific response categories are shown on the chart. Less common barriers or challenges are not charted. ‘Don’t know’ responses (4%) are included in the base but not shown in the chart.}

Responses varied depending on business size. While the 2 most commonly reported issues were the same among SMEs and large businesses, the latter group of businesses were more likely than SMEs to mention global instability or war (16% compared to 7%). Changes in customs processes or paperwork (8% compared to 2%) were reported as issues that will affect how large businesses perform in the next 12 months.

Responses also varied on export status and business location. Businesses who had exported within the previous 12 months were more likely than average to cite global instability or war as a growth challenge (14%, compared to 7% of all businesses). Businesses based in London were more likely than average to report the UK’s economic performance (25%, compared with 15% overall) and inflation or prices (16%, compared with 8% overall) as challenges to their business performance over the next 12 months.

4. Employment rights

This section examines businesses’ awareness of recent or upcoming changes to employment rights in Great Britain. As employment rights are devolved in Northern Ireland, this section focuses on findings from businesses in Great Britain only.

4.1 General awareness of changes to employment rights

Two-thirds (66%) of businesses in Great Britain reported having heard of any recent or upcoming changes to employment rights. Large businesses were more likely than SMEs to have heard of these changes (81% compared with 66%).

4.2 Awareness of specific changes to employment rights

Businesses were also asked whether they had heard of 5 specific reforms included within the wider package of changes to employment rights. These were:

• recent changes to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), making it a day-one right for all employees regardless of how much they earn

• recent changes making paternity leave and unpaid parental leave day-one rights for employees

• recent changes offering whistleblowing protection to employees who report sexual harassment

• recent changes to trade union laws intended to make it simpler for trade unions to gain recognition from employers

• the Fair Work Agency (FWA), a new public body intended to help enforce the new changes to employment rights

These changes were included in the wave 1 survey because they had come into force in April 2026, a few months before fieldwork began (in June 2026). Future waves will cover upcoming changes to employment rights that have not yet been implemented.

Awareness was highest for changes to SSP (77%) and changes making paternity leave and unpaid parental leave day-one rights (71%). Three in 5 (60%) had heard of changes to whistleblowing protections for employees reporting sexual harassment. In contrast, awareness was lower for recent changes to trade union laws (26%) and for the FWA (21%).

Large businesses were more likely than SMEs to have heard of each of the 5 specific changes. The largest differences were in awareness of changes to whistleblowing protections (89% of large businesses were aware, compared with 60% of SMEs) and changes to trade union recognition laws (64% of large businesses were aware, compared with 26% of SMEs).

Figure 4.1: Proportion of SMEs and large businesses that were aware of specific changes to employment rights

Area	SMEs	Large businesses
Changes to SSP	78%	96%
Changes to paternity leave and unpaid parental leave	71%	92%
Changes to whistleblowing protections	60%	89%
Changes to union recognition laws	26%	64%
FWA	21%	46%

^{Unweighted bases: 925 SMEs in Great Britain with 1 to 249 employees; 64 large businesses in Great Britain with 250+ employees
Question label and wording: Q_EMPRIGHTSHEARD. Before today, had you heard of any of the following?
N.B. ‘Not aware’ and ‘Don’t know’ responses (4%) are included in the base but not shown in the chart. The ‘Don’t know’ response ranged from 2% to 4% across categories. Large business results are based on 64 responses so have a wider margin of error.}

5. International trade and exporter status

This section explores businesses’ recent exporting and importing activity, including:

• whether they had traded internationally in the last 12 months

• their potential to export in the future

• the overseas markets that are served by current exporters

International trade was also a principal area covered by the NSB’s predecessor, the NSRB. Consistent question wording and exporter groupings have been used where possible. However, findings from the 2 surveys are not directly comparable due to differences in sampling, weighting and data collection methods, which have been listed at the end of this summary.

5.1 Importing

Around one-quarter (27%) of businesses had imported goods or services from outside the UK in the previous 12 months. Large businesses were more likely than SMEs to have imported during this time (65% compared to 27%).

5.2 Exporting

For those businesses who sold physical goods, nearly one-quarter (24%) had exported these goods outside the UK in the previous 12 months. A further 7% of these businesses had exported physical goods at one point but not within the previous 12 months. Among those businesses selling services or digital goods, 13% said that they had exported to non-UK customers in the past 12 months, while a further 3% had done so previously but not in the past 12 months.

Businesses, both exporters and non-exporters, were sorted into 4 groupings based on their current and potential future exporting activity:

• the ‘sustain’ group (17%) – businesses that had exported in the previous 12 months

• the ‘reassure’ group (5%) – businesses that had exported in the past, but not the last 12 months

• the ‘promote’ group (21%) – businesses that had never exported but said that their products or services could be exported now or in the future

• the ‘challenge’ group (56%) – businesses that had never exported and said that their products or services would never be suitable for export

These groupings are consistent with those used in the NSRB, although findings are not directly comparable across both surveys due to differing survey methodologies. Previous NSRB findings indicated an increasing proportion of businesses that had never exported. The wave 1 NSB findings are consistent with this pattern, but further waves of data are needed before drawing conclusions about changes over time.

In terms of business size, SMEs were less likely than large businesses to be in the ‘Sustain’ export group (17% compared to 37%).

Figure 5.1: Export status across SMEs and large businesses

Organisation type	Sustain	Reassure	Promote	Challenge
SMEs	17%	5%	22%	56%
Large businesses	37%	2%	28%	33%

^{Unweighted bases: 925 SMEs in Great Britain with 1 to 249 employees; 64 large businesses in Great Britain with 250+ employees
Question label and wording: Derived measure determined from several variables (Q_EXPORTGOODS. Has your business ever exported physical goods outside the UK? This could include revenue from commissions, royalties and licences; Q_EXPORTSERVICES. Has your business ever exported services or digital goods to non-UK customers? This could include commissions, royalties and licences; Q_EXPORTPOSS. Which one of the following best describes your business?)
N.B. Large business results are based on 64 responses so have a wider margin of error.}

5.3 Overseas markets served by current exporters

In the previous 12 months:

• 15% of businesses had exported to the EU and wider European Economic Area

• 9% to the United States and Canada

• 6% to Australia, East Asia and Pacific countries

A smaller proportion (between 2 and 4% of business) had exported to other markets, as shown in Figure 5.2.

This question was only asked of exporters. However, the findings in this chart have been rebased to show the proportions across the total business population. This more accurately shows the proportion of all businesses that export to various global locations.

Figure 5.2: Markets exported to in the past 12 months, among exporting businesses

EU and wider European Economic Area	15%
The US and Canada	9%
Australia, East Asia and Pacific countries	6%
The Middle East and Pakistan	4%
China or Hong Kong	3%
Central America, South America and the Caribbean	3%
Central Asia and the rest of Europe	3%
Southern Asian countries	2%
Africa	2%

^{Unweighted base: 237 businesses that had exported in the previous 12 months
Question label and wording: Q_EXPORTMARKET. In the last 12 months, which of the following countries or regions have you exported to?
N.B. The question was only asked of exporters, but the percentages in the chart have been rebased on all businesses (exporters and non-exporters). Businesses could select more than one location. ‘Don’t know’ responses (2%) are included in the base but not shown in the chart.}

6. Free trade agreements

This section examines awareness of 4 FTAs that the UK government has signed or has been in the process of negotiating within the 5 years preceding wave 1 of the NSB. These findings are based on businesses that had exported previously, considered that their products or services could be exported, or had imported in the previous 12 months. In other words, they exclude businesses that had not traded internationally and did not expect to do so.

Businesses were asked if they had heard of the following FTAs:

• the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

• the UK-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement

• the UK-India Free Trade Agreement

• the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)

More than half of businesses had heard of the UK-Australia FTA (66%), the UK-India FTA (61%) and the UK-New Zealand FTA (55%). The CPTPP was less recognised, with 28% of businesses having heard of it.

Detailed knowledge (those saying that they had heard a great deal) was low across all FTAs, with only 3% of businesses with current or potential involvement in international trade reporting having heard ‘a great deal’ about the UK-Australia FTA, and just 2% saying they had heard ‘a great deal’ about the UK-New Zealand FTA.

Figure 6.1: Awareness of selected FTAs, among businesses that do or could trade internationally

FTA	A great deal	A fair amount	Heard of it but don’t know much about it	Have not heard of it
UK-Australia FTA	3%	13%	51%	33%
UK-New Zealand FTA	2%	9%	44%	44%
UK-India FTA	0%	10%	51%	37%
CPTPP	0%	4%	24%	70%

^{Unweighted base: 562 businesses in the ‘sustain’ ‘promote’ or ‘reassure’ export groups or who imported in the last 12 months
Question label and wording: Q_FTAAWARE Before today, how much, if at all, did you know about each of the following free trade agreements?
N.B. For the UK-India FTA and the CPTPP, the survey found that less than 0.5% of businesses had heard ‘a great deal’ about these FTAs, which would round to 0%. Therefore, this is not shown in the chart. ‘Don’t know’ responses (4%) are included in the base but not shown in the chart. The ‘Don’t know’ response ranged from 1% to 2% across categories.}

7. Wave 1 technical details

During wave 1:

• Ipsos interviewed 1,019 senior representatives of UK businesses with employees between 22 June and 12 August 2026

• interviews were conducted by telephone and online, total of 840 interviews were completed by telephone and 179 were completed online

• the sample was sourced from the Market Location business database

• the research covered businesses operating in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and included all business sizes (except businesses without employees) and sectors

In this summary:

• small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are businesses with 1 to 249 employees, while large businesses have 250 or more employees. A total of 946 SMEs and 64 large businesses took part in wave 1

• results are weighted by business size (number of employees) and sector

The NSB collects some of the same data as its predecessor, the NSRB. However, both surveys are not directly comparable due to differences in sampling, weighting and data collection.

The NSRB sample was sourced from the Inter-Departmental Business Register which only includes registered businesses, while the NSB sample was sourced from the Market Location database which includes unregistered businesses as well as registered ones.

Turnover was included in the NSRB weighting approach but is not included in the NSB weighting approach. NSRB interviews were conducted entirely by telephone, while 18% of wave 1 NSB interviews were self-completed online. The NSRB importing statistics also covered only businesses with an annual turnover of £500,000 or more.