The Gender Gap in UK Startup and Scaleup Businesses | 2022

Beauhurst has been tracking the gender gap in the UK’s high-growth ecosystem for several years now, monitoring the success of female entrepreneurs, from the number of startups and scaleups led by women to the amount of venture capital raised by these firms. As well as reporting on these numbers, we’ve also produced pieces that spotlight female business owners who are seeing incredible success, as well as various interviews with female founders and investors. 

We’ve even made it possible for you to track gender diversity metrics yourself on the Beauhurst platform, so you can partner with women in business, identify and work to address inequalities in your portfolio, and track the impact of female entrepreneurship on economic growth in your region. 

Whilst we have seen improvement over the past few years, with women entrepreneurs securing three times the proportion of pounds invested in 2021 than in 2011, progress is—unfortunately—starting to slow. It’s safe to say that there is still plenty more to be done to achieve gender equality across the UK’s fast-growing businesses.

In honour of International Women’s Day 2022, we’ve compiled the latest statistics on female entrepreneurship in the UK, highlighting the number of female entrepreneurs, the proportion of venture capital going to female and male entrepreneurs, and the top investors into female entrepreneurs in the country.