Three Sussex towns among UK’s ten most entrepreneurial seaside hotspots

Following a study by Easy Offices, Bognor Regis, Eastbourne and Worthing appear in a top 10 list of UK seaside towns, based on the ratio between the number of new businesses registered and their population.

Remote working has become a staple, post-pandemic, and ‘with a work-from-anywhere approach’, many entrepreneurs have begun setting up businesses in places more thought of as holiday destinations than business hubs.

The analysis focused on Companies House data across the towns in seaside resorts with a population of 50,000 or more.

The data showed a total of 2,264 new companies were set-up in 2022 across the three towns, with Eastbourne achieving the most at 978 – a 22 per cent rise on the previous year. This means one new business was started in Eastbourne last year for every 103 people.

"This is impressive when compared to much larger cities such as Southampton with a population of more than one million,” an Easy Offices spokesperson said. “Here, one new business was started last year for every 93 people.

“Also in Sussex is Brighton, it didn’t make our list as it’s technically a city but we couldn’t let it go without a special mention as 2,028 new businesses were registered there last year and with a population of just 277,200 that’s one new business for every 136 people.”

As many as 871 new companies were set-up in Worthing in 2022 – a ten per cent rise on the previous year. In Bognor Regis, 415 businesses were set up – a rise of 43 per cent.

The list was completed by: Weston-Super-Mare; Blackpool; Southport; Torquay; Clacton-on-Sea; Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. A total of 7,428 new businesses were registered across the ten towns last year.

John Williams, CMO of Easy Offices, said: “Far from being sleepy resorts for retirees, this research shows the entrepreneurial flame is burning brightly in the UK’s coastal communities when it comes to grasping new business opportunities.

“Following the pandemic, thousands of families decided to relocate from the UK’s cities in pursuit of a new lifestyle. This was likely the catalyst needed for many individuals to create a business while operating from their new-found location, comfortable in the knowledge the workplace is now fundamentally more flexible.

“We’re seeing that businesses planning for the future and hoping to gain an edge in talent attraction are increasingly turning to flexibility as a key strategic driver. During the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2021, enquiries rose considerably for some of our flexible office locations beyond the big cities, confirming that the geographical concentration of business skills is diversifying.”

To compile the data, Easy Offices built its own tool to analyse Companies House data and uncover how many new businesses were launched in some of the UK’s coastal towns during 2022 compared with 2021.

"We overlaid this with population data to discover which places had the highest new business to population ratio,” a spokesperson said.

"We focused on ‘seaside towns’ (or resorts) rather than all places around the coast. We analysed the data for the 18 largest seaside towns in England, each with a population of at least 50,000.

"These were Bournemouth, Brighton, Southend-on-Sea, Blackpool, Isle of Wight, Worthing, Folkestone, Scarbrough, Eastbourne, Great Yarmouth, Hastings, Southport, Weston-Super-Mare, Lowestoft, Bognor Regis, Torquay, Weymouth, Clacton-on-Sea.”

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