Number of self-employed workers in the UK 2000-2025

As of January 2025, there were around 4.39 million self-employed workers in the United Kingdom. During this provided time-period, self-employment in the UK has grown steadily, from a low of just 3.2 million in December 2000, to a peak of over five million at the start of 2020. After the COVID-19 pandemic, however, self-employment has fallen to levels not seen since the middle of 2015 and has struggled to recover to its pre-pandemic peak.

Demographics of the self-employed

There has consistently been more men self-employed than women in the UK, with recent figures showing that over 2.8 million men, and over 1.5 million women were self-employed. As of 2024, the most likely age group to be self-employed were those aged 65 or over, with over a third of workers in this age group self-employed. In the same year, around 16.5 percent of workers in London were self-employed, compared with the UK average of 13.1 percent, making London the region with the highest rate of self-employment in the UK.

Self-employment support scheme

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK government unveiled various measures to mitigate the economic costs to businesses and individuals. For self-employed workers, this manifested itself as the Self-Employment Income-Support Scheme, which was in its third iteration, or tranche, by December 2020. During the first tranche, which ran from March to July, there were 2.7 million claims made in total, with claims to the second and third tranches numbering 2.4 million and 1.7 million respectively. As of December 13, 2020, the overall value of these claims amounted to 14.5 billion British pounds.