Northerners make more successful entrepreneurs than Southerners

If it’s ‘grim up North’, it’s not hindering the success of its entrepreneurs who are out-performing their soft southern counterparts according to research from the Hull University Business School, Cranfield School of Management and the University of St Andrews.

Northern entrepreneurs may be more successful, but they are fewer in number. In the South, 23% of men and 11% of women are self-employed, compared to 17% of men and 8% of women in the North.

Controversially the report suggests a negative link between education and self-employment. This combined with greater job opportunities in the South means that less-well educated men are pushed into self-employment and that it’s therefore associated with lower ability.

Limited job opportunities for ‘more intelligent’ men in the North mean that they are forced into self-employment/entrepreneurship.

The conclusion: Southern entrepreneurs are more numerous, but more stupid than their Northern counterparts who are therefore more successful. 

Success in terms of the survey is not based on profitability, but on the number of employees created on average by people choosing to run their own businesses. Self-employed men in the South, for example, have an average of 2.65 people working for them, while their Northern equivalents create 3.52 jobs.

While this is perhaps an unconventional way of measuring business success, ‘jobs created’ is an important part of the benefits of entrepreneurship in local communities.

As Dr Michael Nolan at Hull University Business School says:

The findings are sufficiently different between North and South England as to require corresponding regional variation in enterprise policy, particularly regarding education and finance. The North-South economic divide is not merely a traditional industrial phenomenon but a hallmark of self-employment too.

[Picture courtesy of Frenkieb]

Hull University Business School | northern entrepreneur | self-employment |