Northern Ireland Business Demography Statistics 2020

Date published: 27 January 2022

The demography statistics detailed in this output are based on businesses registered in Northern Ireland only. This is in line with the UK demography statistics produced by the ONS and allows for international comparisons. The number of businesses with an active VAT and/or PAYE registration in Northern Ireland throughout 2020 was 64,600. Demography statistics measure changes in these registrations over the calendar year. New business registrations are referred to as births and business de-registrations are referred to as deaths. A business birth does not necessarily equate to a new business and a business death does not necessarily equate to a business closing.

Key points

There were 6,375 business births in Northern Ireland during 2020, a decrease of 3.8 per cent on the previous year.

• All four regions across the UK experienced a decrease in the number of business births since 2019 - England (8.0 per cent), Wales (2.9 per cent), and Scotland with the largest decrease (17.9 per cent).
• The business birth rate (number of births as a proportion of active businesses) in Northern Ireland decreased by 0.5 percentage points (pps) from 2019, and by 1.4 pps from the series high in 2017.

There were 4,900 business deaths in Northern Ireland in 2020, a decrease of 9.0 per cent on the previous year.

• Northern Ireland saw the largest decrease in business deaths in percentage terms compared with England (2.2 per cent), Wales (5.2 per cent), and Scotland (3.3 per cent).
• Northern Ireland business death rates remain lower than England, Scotland and Wales. All four UK regions saw a decrease of less than 1 pp in the business death rate from 2019 to 2020.

The number of business births was greater than the number of business deaths for all district council areas across Northern Ireland.

• Birth rates decreased for all district councils in Northern Ireland except for three areas. Causeway Coast and Glens; and Newry, Mourne and Down both saw relatively small increases over the year, whilst Antrim and Newtownabbey saw an increase of 2.9 pps.
• Death rates decreased across all district council areas, bar one, to December 2020. Newry, Mourne and Down saw an increase of just under 1 pp over the period.

Retail saw an increase in business births of 47.2 per cent in 2020. Business births in Transport and storage increased by 13.6 per cent.

• The growth in Transport and storage was replicated across all UK regions, where there has been a significant rise in small or single person courier companies to meet the demand for home delivery services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The number of deaths in the Construction industry fell by 215 (21.8 per cent) from 985 in 2019 to 770 in 2020. The death rate for the Construction industry was 6.5 per cent in 2020, 5.0 pps below the series high of 11.5 per cent in 2012.