Three quarters of British workers dream of running their own business

75% of British workers would like the freedom to run their own business one day, according to new research from St James’s Place Academy, the training and development arm of the FTSE100 financial services company. 78% of men and 73% of women aged 25-55 surveyed said they had dreams of becoming an entrepreneur.

In terms of the most attractive things about running a business, 51% of respondents thought that having more control/setting their own hours would be the best thing. A further 21% thought that better job satisfaction would result, 15% believe they could increase their earnings and 11% like the idea of working from wherever they like.

Adrian Batchelor, Academy Director at St James’s Place Academy said: “It’s also great news to see women and men equally enthusiastic about the prospect of running their own businesses – indeed, the entrepreneurial vision seems to be something that unites the sexes rather than dividing them.”

Other significant findings of the research include:

• Younger workers (those aged between 18-35) are more predisposed to the entrepreneurial dream (82%) than older people in employment (compared to the 58% of those aged 55+ who expressed a desire to run their own business)
• Londoners are the most entrepreneurially minded (81% want to run their own business), while the Scottish are the least (69%)
• Employees working in advertising/marketing are the most entrepreneurially minded (89%) while those in the public sector are the least (68%)
• 85% of higher earners (those on £70k+) want to set up their own business vs 71% of those earning less than £20k.

When it comes to perceptions of what might be the hardest thing about running a business, men and women slightly differed. A significant minority of women think that managing the finances would be the hardest thing (30%) compared to the 38% of men who think attracting customers would be the toughest challenge. Roughly equal numbers of men and women thought that long hours (19%) and stress (16.5%) would be the hardest thing to deal with.

St James’s Place Academy is hosting an event – Inspiring Women – on 23 November in London.  The event is designed to motivate, inspire, connect and celebrate women in business. Read more about the event here.