Preston was the third most entrepreneurial city over the past year according to new research

Instant Offices, a website which helps businesses find office space, says that following the hardships of the pandemic, they analysed Companies House data to work out which UK cities are “fighting back with the strongest entrepreneurial spirit”.

They analysed the population to startup ratio across the country’s top cities to discover which locations saw the highest concentration of entrepreneurs in the last 12 months, Preston came out as the UK’s third most entrepreneurial city, with a 24.7% increase in the number of businesses registered in 2021.

With a population size of 99198, Preston went from having 2316 businesses start up in 2020 to 2889 in 2021, which is a growth of almost a quarter.

This was only overshadowed by Doncaster who saw a 26.9 per cent growth, and St Albans, who topped the list with a 28.1 per cent growth.

In terms of what types of businesses have seen the biggest boom in Preston over the past year, Ecommerce and Real Estate came out on top, with 160 new businesses being launched under the ‘retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet’ category.

The next most thriving business type in Preston was the ‘other letting and operating of own or leased real estate’ category (i.e buying property to rent out), with 110 new start-ups last year, followed by the 101 businesses that deal with the construction of domestic buildings, and the 90 who deal with freight transport by road.

Management consultancy activities then accounted for 87 of the new businesses, whilst ‘activities of other holding companies’ and ‘take’, both accounted for 77.

Finishing off the top 10 most popular new start ups are ‘buying and selling of own real estate’ with 76, ‘other service activities’ with 75, and the development of building projects with 63 businesses.

Commenting on their findings, Instant Offices said: “The widespread switch to remote working and online shopping fuelled a digital transformation in the UK. This has also given aspiring entrepreneurs the final push needed to start their own businesses from home.”