Four Base Rate rises since last August may signal a toughening economic environment, but the self-employed have bucked the trend of the country this quarter and are growing in confidence about their financial prospects, according to the lender.
According to the index, nearly two thirds of self-employed people are confident about their business prospects for the next six months, up from 60 per cent last quarter. And expectations about turnover are reflected in this increased confidence. Nearly half (48 per cent) of all business owner think the turnover of their business will increase over the next 12 months – an increase of 5 per cent on the last index in February.
Anticipation of increasing turnovers has also had a knock-on effect on business owners’ recruitment expectations. A quarter of all self-employed people expect to take on more staff over the next 12 months, up from just over a fifth last quarter.
By far the most confident age bracket is those business owners aged between 35 and 44, with 36 per cent claiming to be ‘very confident’ about their firm’s business prospects for the next six months and 59 per cent expecting the turnover to increase over the next year. While it seems that male business owners are slightly more bullish about turnover than their female counterparts, with 49 per cent of self-employed men expecting it to increase compared to 45 per cent of women.
These findings have been collected as part of the second instalment of Kensington’s Self-Employed Index, which has been launched to track the mood, expectations and behaviour of the self-employed with research carried out and published every quarter.
The research for this quarter’s Index was carried out by talking to more than 500 self-employed people. It found that 70 per cent of the self-employed population is male and the most popular age group for people to be self-employed is between 35 and 54. Two thirds of business owners are in the ABC1 social grade (68 per cent), and three quarters (75 per cent) are either married or living as married.
Ian Giles, director of marketing at Kensington Mortgages, said: “With four interest rate rises since August and a change of Prime Minister imminent, many people are becoming more cautious about the outlook for the finances over the next six to twelve months. But not the country’s growing band of self-employed – they are going from strength to strength and are even more bullish about their business prospects than they were three months ago.
“However confident they are, business owners will still need sound financial advice and intermediaries can play an important role in making sure the self-employed get the advice they need to keep their finances in good shape.”
