More than 11 per cent of Lancashire businesses in eight key sectors to the UK economy have significant potential for high growth in the next 12 months, with the county outperforming the UK average across four of these, according to a new report.
The analysis has been compiled by advisory, research and evaluation organisation GC Insight using Growth Flag, a business tool which produces a forward-looking growth score for UK businesses trading for at least one year, drawing on a range of key indicators.
The report evaluates the county’s economy against the ‘IS-8’ sectors, those outlined in the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy, which was released in June, as driving UK economic growth. These are: advanced manufacturing, creative industries, life sciences, clean energy, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, and professional and business services.
It found Lancashire has 25,010 businesses in these sectors, with 2,831 showing high-growth potential, meaning they are likely or very likely to grow by 20 per cent or more in the next year.
The data also compares the proportion of businesses with high growth potential in each IS-8 sector to the rest of the UK. Of the eight sectors, Lancashire is above average in four, below average in two and in line with the rest of the UK in two sectors.
The biggest of these to Lancashire is professional and business services, with 1,642 of 14,489 businesses having high growth potential. Digital and technologies is also a significant sector to the economy, with 830 companies showing high growth potential from a total of 7,171, also above the UK average. In addition, Lancashire’s creative and life sciences industries were above the UK average.
The report follows Two Zero’s analysis from earlier this year that the Lancashire scaleup economy outperformed the rest of the UK over the previous five years.
Amin Vepari, business finance and scaleup lead at Lancashire County Council, said: “The Growth Flag analysis shows that, on balance, Lancashire’s economy has a higher proportion of businesses with scaleup potential in the next year across the government’s eight key sectors than the UK average.
“That’s great news for our county’s economic, especially following our own analysis about the Lancashire scaleup economy’s strong performance looking at the past five years.
“The IS-8 sectors align with many of our county’s own key industries and Two Zero has provided scaleup support to dozens of companies in these, including advanced manufacturing businesses like Coolkit and EnergyAce, creative companies such as Brilliant Trees and Get John as well as digital firms such as EcoSurv.”
“The county’s own Lancashire Growth Plan to 2035 is currently being finalised, which focuses on many of the IS-8 sectors and provides a strategy to help businesses operating in them to fulfil their potential, so the Growth Flag’s report of the county’s scaleup potential in these industries is a real stamp of approval in Lancashire’s approach to economic growth.”
An initial draft of the Lancashire Growth Plan was published for consultation between February and April this year. The final version is set to be released in autumn.
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