Small Business Survey Scotland: 2023-2024

Introduction

This report sets out selected findings from the Longitudinal Small Business Survey (LSBS) 2023 for Scotland. It focusses on small and medium-sized enterprises with at least one employee (SME employers). It outlines the key characteristics of SME employers in Scotland and provides an overview of their perceptions on a range of themes including innovation, fair work and access to finance. In addition, the report provides an insight into business performance and outlook. Please note that headline findings for Scotland were included in the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) publication for the UK in September. This publication contains more detailed findings. The time gap is due to the later availability of the more detailed data for Scotland, as well as the need to then process the raw data and quality assure the resultant tables.

According to Businesses in Scotland 2024 - as of March 2024 - there were an estimated 355,805 SMEs operating in Scotland, of which those with employees represented around 30 per cent (105,905 enterprises). In the Scottish private sector, SMEs with employees accounted for 42 per cent of employment and 37 per cent of turnover (close to the respective 43 per cent and 38 per cent from March 2023).

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.