Over half South East youth want to own a company

Entrepreneur Lucy Jeffery says young people in the UK are scared to fail

More than half of young people across the South East want to start a business but only a quarter of them succeed, says a new report.

Disparities in support, education and role models are holding 18 to 34-year-olds in Kent, Sussex and Surrey back, research from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and insurer Simply Business found.

A third of youths say they have not had any support from local entrepreneurs or businesses, the Generation Entrepreneur report said.

Founder of Maidstone-based socks company Bare Kind Lucy Jeffery said: "We have a culture in the UK of being quite scared of failing."

Ms Jeffery started her business initially selling sustainable products in 2018 aged just 23 while working on a bank's graduate scheme.

In 2020, she left her job to go full time with her company, which donates 10% of profits to animal charities.

Although Ms Jeffery said it was "easy" to set up her online business, generating a sole income proved a challenge.

She said: "It just gets to the point where you get to a level of growth where its really hard to scale."

In 2021, she successfully applied for a £50,000 business loan from her old university, the University of East Anglia.

She said: "I was very lucky to be able to have that opportunity.

"I would have struggled to grow the business to what it is today without that."

Ms Jeffery added she wanted to dispel the myth that an idea has to be "fully fledged" before being turned into a business.

She said: "Just start with something and have a play.

"You don't need to have the million-dollar idea now."

Side hustle

Like how Lucy started out, almost a third of 18 to 34-year-olds in Kent, Sussex and Surrey have a side hustle or second income in addition to their main job, according to the report.

Just over half want to start a business to make money and improve their standard of living, while almost a fifth (17%) want to start an enterprise to benefit their local community, the research found.

Alongside the report FSB and Simply Business have made a number of policy recommendations to the UK government, including embedding enterprise into the National Curriculum.

They are also asking the Government to increase tax-free trading allowance from £1,000 to £2,000 to benefit those with side hustles.

Tina McKenzie, Policy and Advocacy Chair at the Federation of Small Businesses said: "This is the moment for civil society, business, government, finance, and the education sector to come together to move the dial."

A HM Treasury spokesperson says officials are "focused on going further and faster to kickstart economic growth so working people have more money in their pockets".

They say the government is extending a 40% relief on business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure, and will introduce a "permanently lower" business rate in 2026.