One in four people in England are running or considering starting their own business, a new report showed today.

The figure has not changed over the past two years, according to a survey of 10,000 people for the Department of Trade and Industry.

Most of those polled said they would encourage friends and relatives to start their own enterprise and believed that people who failed in their first business venture should be given the chance to start again.

Men were twice as likely as women to be entrepreneurs and there was a higher percentage of people running their own businesses in London, the South-West, East of England and South-East than in the North-East and West Midlands.

Friday July 23, 2004