The Scaleup Index 2022: A Summary

Scaleups are the UK growth champions—in 2020, they contributed £1.2tn to the UK economy. That represents over 50% of the value of the UK SME community, despite these companies making up less than 0.6% its population.

Our 2022 ScaleUp Index report, developed with the Scaleup Institute, provides an in-depth analysis of the UK’s ‘visible’ scaleups—scaleups breaking through over £10.2m turnover and/or £5.1m in assets. Read through our summary below, and download the full report for more analysis.

Key findings

• The overall number of visible scaleups has increased to 8,457—a significant increase of 119% since the first Index in 2017, which identified 3,856 visible scaleups.
• When considering the different types of scaling event: 25% were achieved by increases in both headcount and turnover; 37% by scaling turnover alone; and 35% by headcount.
• Visible scaleups are found across sectors and across the whole UK with notable scaleup clusters outside of London in Edinburgh, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Manchester and Leeds.
• A total of 1,581 visible scaleups are backed by equity funding; between 2012 and 2021, these businesses raised investment worth £43.5b over 4,596 deals. With £8.82b invested into visible scaleups in 2021 across 382 deals.

Scaleup companies 2022 summary

The top scaleup sector in 2022 was business and professional services with 3,823, followed by industrials at 2,070. Built environment and infrastructure, technology/IP-based businesses and retail rounded off the top five.

The top region by number of visible scaleups was London at 2,345, nearly five times as much as second placed Scotland at 477. The South East (437), Greater Manchester (332) and Leeds City Region (286) followed.

The top scaleup by turnover was the EG Group at £15.7b, and the top by employee count was OCS at 64.4k. Download the full report to see more details.

Equity investment

Between 2012 and 2021, £43.5b has been invested into visible scaleups across 4,596 deals. Investment reached its peak in 2021 at £8.82b. In this time, the most common amount invested is less than £500k, totalling £268m across 1,857 deals. However, the most amount was invested from deals over £50m. Across 205 deals at this value, a total of £29.5b has been raised.

BGF Growth Capital has participated in more equity deals into visible scaleups from 2012-2021, with 128 deals.  Crowdfunding platforms Crowdcube and Seedrs are second and third, with 76 and 60 respectively. In terms of combined value of deal participations, Softbank Vision Fund leads the way, with £2.54b across 12 deals.

Grants

In the same time period, £318m worth of Innovate UK grants have been invested into visible scaleups. Those companies have raised £4.51b in equity investment, over 10% of the total equity investment into all visible scaleups.

Regions

Scaleup companies are headquartered across the whole of the UK. The most populous regions are London at 27.8%, followed by the South East, home to 14.5% of firms. This is reflective of both population density in the UK and the distribution of ambitious companies in the broader high-growth ecosystem.

Despite the concentration of scaleups in the south of the UK, it is notable that Leeds ranks as the fourth most largest local authority in terms of scaleup numbers, hosting 137 companies. Other local authorities outside of London with large volumes of scaleups include Buckinghamshire, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheshire East, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Download the full report to see a breakdown on local authorities and more details on each region.