Businesses in Scotland: 2023

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 2023 was 380 businesses per 10,000 adults. This is down from a rate of 383 as at March 2022.

Note that the business stock rate for 2023 uses the latest business counts as at March 2023. 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 increased by 365 from 1,530 as at March 2022 to 1,895 as at March 2023. This resulted in an increase in the high growth business share from 0.9% as at March 2022 to 1.1% as at March 2023. Note that there are lags associated with the turnover data used to measure high growth. Although the source of the 2023 data point is an extract of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) as at March 2023, the underlying business turnover data will largely be from 2021. And therefore, the increase in high growth businesses, between 2022 and 2023, is really reflecting the rise in business turnover between 2020 and 2021. For many businesses, turnover in 2020 would have been particularly low due to the COVID-19 national lockdowns and restrictions that impacted trading conditions.