Women in business in the UK: the facts.

There are now around 1.6 million women-led businesses in the UK, up from about 1.1 million in 2019. But women still make up only about 1 in 3 UK entrepreneurs, and female-founded companies got just 5.2% of equity investment in 2024.

How many women run businesses in the UK?

About 1.6 million, according to Department for Business and Trade figures for 2025. That’s roughly half a million more than when the government’s Rose Review was published in 2019.

Do women-led businesses get less funding?

Yes, by a distance. Female-founded companies received 5.2% of all equity investment in 2024 (British Business Bank). That’s up from 2.3% in 2019, but it’s still small change.

Loans tell the same story. In 2022, the average approved loan for a women-led business was about £174,000, against £507,000 for a male-led one (Investing in Women Code). And around a third of women say funding is the biggest barrier to starting at all.

What that means in real life: most of us are building on our own money, so every pound we spend has to work hard, the website included.

Is it different in Wales and the West Midlands?

A bit. The 2025 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found that women’s early-stage business activity in Wales and the North East trailed London by more than three percentage points. Fewer women are starting out here, which makes the ones who do more visible, and more worth backing.

In Birmingham, the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce runs a Women in Business network. In Wales, Business Wales offers free start-up advice. Use them. That’s what they’re for.

So what does this mean for your website?

If you’re more likely to be self-funded, more likely to be underestimated, and less likely to have a marketing team, your website has to do three jobs at once:

1. Be believed in three seconds. Real photo, clear words, proof up top.
2. Be found without an ad budget. Google, the map pack, and now AI answers.
3. Save you time. Enquiries, bookings and the boring questions, handled while you work.

None of that needs a big budget. It needs the right things in the right order. Here are seven to start with.