Female entrepreneurs to double before 2010
Source: Bulletin Wealth, The Future Laboratory
By: Tara Loader Wilkinson

The number of UK women-run businesses will double in the next decade, according to The Future Laboratory, to more than 2 million companies.

A report from The Future Laboratory entitled "The Rise of Lipstick Entrepreneurs" suggests that, according to the growth rates in women-owned start-ups this year, the next 10 years would take the number of self-employed, female-owned businesses to over two million.

In the last decade, female-managed enterprises have enjoyed a period of sustained growth. "The number of women setting up their own businesses has increased dramatically, due to the lifestyle fit that owning and running your own company provides," said Theresa May, MP, Shadow Minister for Women in the report.

She added: "Women who want flexible hours and to be their own boss have been drawn to setting up their own businesses and there are now more than one million self-employed women — a 17% rise since 2000."

The study said that in addition to new female businesses thriving, the next 10 years could see a considerable shake-up in the ratio of female CEOs of FTSE 100 companies, with males considered by many shareholders to have taken too many risks over recent years.

The number female CEOs in FTSE 100 companies is expected to increase from just five in 2008 to more than 50 over the next decade.

Claire Brynteson, a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, founded lifestyle management company buy:time in 2003 .

"I struggled to manage my career, my social commitments and domestic responsibilities and really could have done with a helping hand", she said.

She believes the challenges facing women in business are really no different to their male counterparts, although she said: "Undoubtedly women strive to achieve a work/life balance and meaningful employment that can be successfully combined with family life."

Tags: Entrepreneur