Hospitality key driver of the £2 trillion SME economy

The study carried out by the School of Marketing, a marketing training hub for marketing apprenticeships, highlights the importance of SMEs to the British economy.

Official figures show that SMEs contribute more than £2 trillion in annual turnover to the UK economy and employ 44 per cent of the workforce.

The research scrutinised ONS data and government data to work out which regions and industries powered the most SMEs (those with fewer than 250 employees) last year.

It found that hospitality- made up of accommodation and food services businesses- has the highest proportion of SMEs among all industries, amounting to nearly seven in ten ( 69.8 per cent).

Hospitality came in ahead of wholesale and retail trade, which had 43 per cent of SMEs, retail estate industry ( 35.4 per cent), agriculture, forestry and fishing ( 33 per cent) and manufacturing ( 32 per cent).

The study also found that across all UK regions, Northern Ireland has the highest proportion of SMEs ( 29.4 per cent) ahead of Scotland ( 27.7 per cent), the East Midlands ( 27.3 per cent), with the North West and Wales tied on 27.7 per cent.

Further findings from the study show that communication skills and Microsoft Office proficiency were the most sought after skills in job adverts, appearing in 61 per cent of the job adverts that were analysed.

Ritchie Mehta, CEO, School of Marketing, said: “It’s essential that they [SMEs) are not only given the support to grow and continue making such an important contribution, but also that there is a skilled workforce able to help them deliver and adapt to the demands of an evolving economy.

“This data shows that when it comes to skills, there are some common themes that employers are looking for across a range of jobs, however in the current climate, budgets for training are likely to be cut, and the skills gap could widen.

“SME owners can take advantage of the Apprenticeship Levy scheme to bring in new staff or train current ones in digital and data-led programmes, with the vast majority of the training cost covered by the levy.”