More than 150,000 new all-women-led companies were founded in the UK in 2022 – more than any year previously – according to new research.
Finder’s report also revealed that almost one in five UK companies (18%) are led by women in 2024 – more than 880,000.
However, when the figures are broken down regionally, the North East is lagging behind the national picture. London has the highest percentage of women-led businesses (19.8%) with Northern Ireland with the lowest at 14.7%. The percentage of women-led businesses in the North East is 16.2%.
A rise in the number of female-led companies in the UK is a fact that Teesside business owner Stacey Nottingham relishes.
And it shows a more diverse change in the business community since she founded her creative design and digital marketing agency, Bombshell Design, 23 years ago.
“It was inevitable I would become a designer,” says Stacey, who was born and raised in Thornaby.
“My Mum said I was always out in the backyard drawing – and I have always wanted to run my own business for as long as I can remember.”
At university, Stacey discovered a passion for digital art but on leaving higher education, she found competing for a job in what was then a male-dominated industry much harder than she ever imagined.
She had moved down to London where she got talking to an old school friend about wanting to move back up north.
“We decided we would create our own jobs and set up our own business,” she says.
“At that time, in my experience there were no other design companies run solely by women in Teesside and a very limited number across the North East.”
They knew they were onto something good and were soon winning accolades including the Young Entrepreneur award at the Women in Business awards in 2004.
A year later, Stacey’s business partner decided being a business owner wasn’t for her so Stacey bought her out and has run Bombshell ever since.
Now Stacey has a team behind her which includes a head designer, website designer, admin and social media executive and a recently appointed head of web and digital SEO.
Over the years, Bombshell has grown from a graphic design company to incorporate other services including branding, website design and development, SEO (search engine optimisation), social media marketing and printed literature.
“In the next year, I want to grow the team with a junior designer and a social media apprentice,” says Stacey, who lives in Wynyard.
“At present, the team works remotely but once we have a junior designer and/or an apprentice, I want to return to an office setting to ensure they can learn from us all face-to-face.
“It’s fantastic to see so many women-led creative design companies in Teesside. I still think we have a long way to go but seeing the rise in female entrepreneurs is great to see and very different from when I started out. Having more women in business is better for all of us.”