Businesses in Scotland: 2022

National Performance Framework – National Indicators

The National Performance Framework includes an indicator on the 'Number of Businesses'. This measures the total number of registered private sector businesses operating in Scotland per 10,000 adults. This is the business stock rate. The business stock rate as at March 2022 was 383 businesses per 10,000 adults. This is down from a rate of 388 as at March 2021.

Note that the business stock rate for 2022 uses the latest business counts as at March 2022. But it uses the 2021 mid-year population estimates

The National Performance Framework includes an indicator on 'High Growth Businesses'. This measures high growth businesses as a share of all registered businesses operating in Scotland. A high growth business is defined as a business with 10+ employees in the base year (x-3). It must also exhibit an average of 20% annual growth in turnover over three years.

The number of high growth businesses decreased by 520 from 2,050 as at March 2021 to 1,530 as at March 2022. This resulted in a decrease in the high growth business share from 1.2% as at March 2021 to 0.9% as at March 2022. However, it’s important to note that there are lags associated with the turnover data used to measure high growth. Although the source of the 2022 data point is an extract of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) as at March 2022, the underlying business turnover data will largely be from 2020. For many businesses, turnover in 2020 would have been much lower than in previous years due to the COVID-19 national lockdowns and restrictions that impacted trading conditions.