Explore the ScaleUp Annual Review 2022

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SOUTH EAST ENGLAND

Across the South East there are 4,795 scaleups with key clusters in Wholesale/Retail, Professional, Scientific & Tech, Admin & Support Services and Info & Communication. There are 2,485 businesses in the scaling pipeline growing between 15-19.99%.

As we assess the development across 2020 in local scaleup dynamics we see an overall slow down in scaleup growth in many localities and continuing regional disparities.

There are 8 LEPs within the South East and over the seven year trend since monitoring began we see on a regional level:

  • The average of the region showed significant growth from 52.6 in 2013 to 64.9 in 2020 in scaleup density (up 12.3 scaleups per 100k population). By comparison, the national average increased by 8.5 scaleups per 100k population during this time period.

More locally we observe:

  • 5 out of the 8 local areas are above the national average in 2020 including the biggest LEP of London.
  • The region growth seems to have stabilised since 2017 – half of the LEPs including Enterprise M3, Buckinghamshire, Coast to Capital and Solent even have a decreasing trend in the same time period.


Scaleups are seeking locally focused scaleup support with connectivity to national and international programmes and stakeholders as they grow. 

In the following pages we look deeper into four exemplar areas, Enterprise M3, Oxfordshire, South East and Thames Valley Berkshire, within the South East highlighting the local dynamics and strategies that have been developed alongside the scaleup support that is available and what impact has been delivered for local scaling businesses.

Further insights on each LEP in the South East can be found in the Annex and a range of public and private programmes supporting scaling businesses in the South East can be found on the scaleup support finder here.

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