Liverpool City Region is now home to 8,000 more employees in scaleup businesses than this time last year, according to a major new report.
The Annual ScaleUp Review – published by the ScaleUp Institute – shows that in 2018, the City Region had 58,513 employees who worked in scaleup businesses, up from 50,197 in 2017. A scaleup has an average annual growth greater than 20 per cent over a three-year period, having had at least 10 employees in that first year.
The report also reveals that the total number of scaleups in the City Region has risen from 550 to 610 over the past year. The top five scaleups by employee growth have been named as Castlerock Recruitment Group, The Contact Company, Potens, Cheshire Mouldings, and Mac Roofing and Contracting.
The report shines a light on the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) – which spearheads the Liverpool City Region Local Growth Hub – and its plans to support local businesses to scale and accelerate growth.
Janice Mears, Commercial Broker for Liverpool City Region LEP said: “Scaleup businesses are crucial for the region’s economy and the fact that we’ve got 8,000 more scaleup employees compared to this time last year is fantastic. It’s encouraging that people are looking to Liverpool City Region for employment.”
The top three barriers for scaleup businesses have been identified as access to talent, access to UK markets and customers, and access to public sector support and funding for research and development.
Currently there is a wide range of support that can be accessed through the Local Growth Hub such as the New Markets 2 programme, and most recently the Scaleup MBA delivered by LJMU’s Business School. The LEP is continuing to develop future programmes of support focused on scale up’s and leadership development.
Janice added: “While the increase in employees, and total number of scaleups, is fantastic news for the region, a lot more needs to be done for the scaleup community to overcome the barriers that its facing. That’s why the Liverpool LEP and Local Growth Hub are working closely on a range of initiatives that will enable businesses to access the support they need to drive them on their scaleup journey.”
The Liverpool City Region Local Growth Hub, which is backed by The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), was launched in 2016 to provide a joined-up approach to business support across the region by increasing the awareness of the public and private sector support available to entrepreneurs, SMEs and scaleup companies.