Partner Article

Research maps young entrepreneurial desires

Research from RBS suggests there is an “ambition gap” among young people who would like to start their own business.

The RBS Youth Enterprise Tracker suggests that 57% of young people are likely to want to start their own business, as opposed to 39% of the general population.

Despite this, only 9% of young people say they are in the process of starting their own business. Young men remain significantly more likely than young women to want to start a “for profit” business, and interestingly young women are twice as likely to want to start a social enterprise.

According to the data, there are regional differences in entrepreneurial desire. London (64%), the East Midlands (67%) and the West Midlands (70%) harbour more young people with a desire to start a business, in contrast with the North East (49%) and Scotland (46%).

The most popular sectors in which young people want to launch a business in include the creative arts and retail, however respondents suggested that technology and internet services were more likely to yield bigger profits.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .