In partnership with Strand, in February, Sage surveyed 500 senior executives from some of the UK's fastest growing businesses. The study focused on two groups, 'Scale-ups', represented by 258 leaders from businesses sustaining 20%+ annual growth in employees or revenue over three years, and 'Next-Gen Scale-ups', comprising 242 leaders from businesses demonstrating strong growth potential, having reached the 20%+ growth threshold in at least one of the past three years.
The findings show that the UK's scale up businesses are demonstrating resilience, achieving an average annual revenue increase of 43% over the past three years - more than double the OECD benchmark*.
Top findings
However, while UK scale-ups demonstrate resilience and ambition, business leaders are clear: continued government support is critical. Access to finance, skilled talent, and a competitive tax environment remain top priorities. With the right policies in place, the UK's scale-ups can unlock even greater potential—strengthening their global presence while driving domestic economic growth.
Steve Hare, CEO at Sage, said: "Scale-ups drive innovation, jobs, and global competitiveness, making them vital to the UK's economic future. With 94% of scale up leaders seeing the UK as the best place to grow and most expecting faster revenue growth in 2025, our entrepreneurial spirit is clear.
We may not be tech leaders in the same way as the US and China, but the UK can lead in tech adoption and the progress it brings. By placing scale-ups and SMBs at the heart of the forthcoming Industrial Strategy, we can unlock their potential, accelerate growth, and cement the UK's place as a leader in innovation for businesses of all sizes."
Myles Stephenson, Founder & CEO of hyper growth scale-up Modulr, said in response to the findings: "The UK's scale-up ecosystem is thriving, with technology and AI driving record growth. Businesses are scaling faster, expanding globally, and embracing innovation like never before. At Modulr, we're powering this momentum with seamless, embedded payments—helping ambitious companies move money as fast as they grow."
Irene Graham OBE, CEO, ScaleUp Institute, said: "Scaleup businesses, across sectors and localities, add over £1.4 trillion a year and more than 3 million jobs to the UK economy, despite representing just 0.6% of the UK business population.
"Scaleups are highly innovative and international and these survey results reinforce their growth and global aspirations and continued desire to scale at pace. If we are to grow the economy then we need to enable our scaleups to flourish and turbo charge the numbers of businesses that scale to significant size.
"This report underscores the critical importance of focusing, across the private and public sectors, on our scaleup population and tailoring proactive 'joined up' dedicated solutions to address their needs for investment; market access; and talent. There is significant upside if we get the alignment to scaleups right in the forthcoming industrial, small business, and local growth strategies."
Rt Hon Baroness Stowell of Beeston, Chair of Communications and Digital Select Committee 2022-2025, also commented: "It's great to see in this survey such positivity from scale-ups, and such a strong desire to stay in the UK as they continue to grow. It's vital that the Government puts in place the right policy framework to make sure they can fulfil their potential and succeed.
As the House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee said in our recent report on AI scale-ups, the risk of the Government not doing so is this country becoming an incubator economy, where our strongest performers have no choice but to leave the UK for them to grow. We can't afford for that to happen."
* A scale-up is defined by the OECD as a company with 10+ employees achieving 20%+ annual growth in revenue and/or employment over three consecutive years.
