External financing methods used by UK SMEs 2023

In 2023, the most used type of external finance sought by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom (UK) was loan from bank, building society or other financial institution. Approximately 38 percent of SMEs had applied for external finance via loan in the previous 12 months. Again a further 37 percent of SMEs had applied for a bank loan from a bank overdraft facility in the last 12 months.

Types of external finance applied for business according to small and medium enterprises in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2019 to 2023

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Release date

September 2024

More information

Region

United Kingdom

Survey time period

2019 to 2023

Special properties

Small businesses with employees

Method of interview

Computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI)

Supplementary notes

The 2019 survey was carried out between July 2019 and February 2020. There were 11,002 respondents, but only those who had obtained external finance answered this question.
The 2020 survey was carried out between September 2020 and April 2021. There were 4,764 respondents, but only those who had obtained external finance answered this question.
The 2021 survey was carried out between September 2020 and April 2021. There were 4,132 respondents, but only those who had obtained external finance answered this question.

The 2023 survey was carried out between October 2023 and April 2024. There were 7,799 respondents, but only those who had obrained external finance answered this question.

Survey was conducted among small and medium businesses with employees. Three categories were distinguished, based on employees numbers: micro businesses (1 to 9 employees), small businesses (10 to 49 employees) and medium businesses (50 to 250 employees).
This statistic is using original data from the Government Digital Service and includes copyright material from © Crown, licensed under the Open Government License v3.0

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