UK Business Survival Rates After Five Years: Industry and Regional Gaps

What the 38.4% rate actually measures

The Office for National Statistics counted 363,825 VAT- and/or PAYE-registered enterprises born in 2019. Of those, 139,845 were still active in 2024. That is a five-year survival rate of 38.4%.

“Active” means the enterprise had turnover or employment at some point in the reference year. A birth is a new active registration identified through the administrative records. This is an administrative measure of the registered business population, not a survey of founders.

It also is not an insolvency rate. If an enterprise is no longer active on the register, the data do not tell us whether it became insolvent, closed voluntarily, was reorganised or stopped for some other reason. “Not active after five years” and “failed financially” are not interchangeable.

The population excludes a sizeable group of low-turnover, non-employing businesses that are not registered for VAT or PAYE. The ONS methodology explains the coverage and limitations.

The same cohort, year by year

Every row below starts with the same 363,825 enterprises born in 2019. The percentages are the share of that original cohort still active, not the chance of surviving the next individual year.

The largest reductions in the share of the original cohort came between years one and two, and between years two and three. That is a useful description of this cohort. It is not a clean estimate of a normal second- or third-year risk: these businesses crossed the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic conditions that followed.

By 2024, 223,980 of the original registrations were not active, or 61.6%. Again, the register does not assign a financial cause to that status.

Industry differences were much wider than regional ones

The spread across the 15 broad industry groups was 35.6 percentage points. Health was highest at 56.1%; transport and storage, including postal activities, was lowest at 20.5%. Put another way, the top-to-bottom gap was about 356 additional survivors per 1,000 births.

The table is descriptive. It does not show that an industry label caused a business to remain active or disappear. Business models, entry conditions, employer status, company size and the mix of enterprises differ sharply between these groups.

Nor does it make health a safe bet. There were 9,060 registered health births in this cohort and 5,080 survivors. A percentage can look comforting while still leaving plenty of closed registrations behind it.

Regional differences were smaller, but still material

Across the 12 UK countries and English regions, the South West had the highest five-year rate at 43.5%. The West Midlands had the lowest at 30.6%. Using the unrounded ONS counts, the gap was 13.0 percentage points, or roughly 130 additional survivors per 1,000 births.

ONS says the West Midlands result was influenced by an unusually high number of business-administration and support-service births in 2019, followed by two years of high deaths, largely associated with multiple registrations at the same address. That is a specific data-quality warning, not a licence to adjust the number away.

The geography is generally the enterprise’s main operating site or head office. It is not a map of where all staff, customers or trading activity sat. Company mix also varies by region, so the table cannot isolate a pure “location effect”.

The industry spread was 2.75 times the regional spread: 35.6 points versus 13.0. That comparison is useful for scale, but it is not a causal model. Industry mix partly sits inside the regional numbers.

What this means for a business plan

Use the national figure as a hard reality check, not a personal forecast. A newly registered business today is not entering the 2019 economy, and its financing, customers, cost base and management will not match the average enterprise in its category.

The tables are more useful for asking better questions:

• Does the plan assume the business will reach steady demand before its cash runs thin?
• Which fixed costs remain if revenue arrives later than expected?
• Is there enough headroom for tax, payroll and a weak trading period?
• Which warning signal would trigger a cut in spending rather than another optimistic forecast?

Our cash runway calculator converts current cash and monthly net burn into a dated estimate. The small-business cash-buffer analysis shows why a runway figure and an operating reserve answer different questions. Neither tool predicts survival, but both make the cash assumption visible—which is more useful than admiring an industry average.

Method and limitations

We downloaded the ONS Business demography, UK: 2024 reference workbook released on 20 November 2025. We used Table 4.2 for the broad-industry comparison and Table 5.1a for the country and region comparison. Both follow the 2019 birth cohort through 2024. We recalculated each percentage from the published counts and checked that the industry and regional totals each reconcile to the UK total.

We also checked the ONS region-by-industry survival extract, released on 21 July 2026. Its intersection cells are independently control-rounded, so a few counts differ by five from the main tables. The headline figures here use the standard reference tables rather than mixing the two rounding bases.

All counts are control-rounded to a multiple of five. Percentages in the public tables are shown to one decimal place. The 13.0-point regional gap is calculated from the unrounded ratios behind the displayed rates; subtracting 30.6 from 43.5 gives 12.9 because both endpoints have already been rounded.

Important limits:

• The population covers VAT- and/or PAYE-registered enterprises on the Inter-Departmental Business Register. It excludes unregistered, low-turnover non-employing businesses.
• A surviving enterprise was active in 2024; the measure says nothing about profitability, employment growth or financial health.
• A non-survivor is not automatically an insolvency. The data do not supply a reason for every cessation.
• The cohort was born in 2019 and crossed an exceptional economic period. It is not a forecast for 2026 starts.
• Broad industry and regional comparisons do not control for enterprise size, legal form, capital, management or business model.
• Regional location is generally the main operating site or head office. Multiple registrations at a single postcode can distort lower-level geography.

The complete results table is available as a downloadable CSV.

Frequently asked questions

What percentage of UK businesses survive five years?

In the ONS registered-business cohort born in 2019, 38.4% were still active in 2024: 139,845 of 363,825 enterprises. This is a cohort result, not a forecast for every new business.

Which UK industry had the highest five-year survival rate?

Health was highest among the 15 ONS broad industry groups at 56.1%. Transport and storage, including postal activities, was lowest at 20.5%.

Which UK region had the highest business survival rate?

The South West was highest at 43.5%. The West Midlands was lowest at 30.6%, and ONS says that result was influenced by unusual multiple registrations at the same address.

Does a business that did not survive become insolvent?

Not necessarily. The statistic records whether the enterprise remained active on the register. It does not identify insolvency as the reason for every business that was no longer active.

Are sole traders included?

They are included when registered for VAT and/or PAYE and represented as enterprises on the IDBR. Low-turnover, non-employing businesses outside those registrations are not covered.