A 15-year Impact Study of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses (10KSB) UK programme has revealed that alumni have created approximately £2.7 billion in additional revenue and 41,000 additional new jobs across the UK.
Analysis by the Enterprise Research Centre compares the performance of over 2,500 10KSB UK graduates with businesses across the economy of a similar size, stage and growth trajectory.
The research suggests that in the three years after completing the programme, 10KSB UK graduates increase their revenues by up to 43% more and employ over a third (35%) more people compared to equivalent companies.
Since 2010, over 2,500 small business leaders from every sector and region of the UK have completed the programme. Collectively, this community accounts for an estimated £10.6 billion in annual revenue and an estimated 82,000 jobs.
“If you give entrepreneurs the right business education and access to a network of ambitious peers, they can grow faster and become engines for job creation,” said Charlotte Keenan, head of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses UK programme.
“It's an obvious equation, yet the gap remains and continues to contribute to the UK's persistent productivity puzzle. The past 15 years have shown just how vital entrepreneurship education is and at Goldman Sachs we are proud to have played a part in helping ambitious small businesses become engines of economic growth.”
This year's report features three case studies from businesses in Wales:
- Dorian Payne, MD, Castell Group.
Castell Group is a Swansea-based construction company focused on building high-quality, affordable housing. Castell has raised over £10 million from private investors, delivering 250 affordable, social and disabled homes over the past six years. A further 300 are under construction, and over 1,000 are in the pipeline.
Since completing the 10KSB programme in 2023, Dorian’s business has doubled turnover from 2023’s £13 million and grown its headcount from 41 to 76.
- Paris Blackwell, Director, Pario Holiday Parks.
Pario Holiday Parks is a North Wales-based, family-owned company offering luxury static caravan and lodge rentals for holiday makers in Wales.
Since completing the 10KSB programme in 2017, the business has invested in a cloud-based booking system, reducing a two-day task to ten minutes, as well as an AI-fuelled pricing algorithm and a digital -pre-check in process. It has increased bookings by 36% and doubled turnover to £7 million since 2023.
- Ross Burn, CEO of CatSci.
CatSci is a Cardiff-based pharmaceutical company specialising in drug discovery and development. Ross joined the 10KSB programme to scale the business from its £3 million turnover with 25 employees in 2019, to a £5 million-a-year business with 50 employees.
Since completing the 10KSB programme in 2019, the business has overshot its scaling ambition, growing revenues by an average of 50% between 2018 and 2022, and won The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade in 2022, doing business in 13 countries, and expanding into Japan and Europe as well as the US.
The report examines the motivations and profiles of the 2,500+ business leaders who have been through the programme, finding that the journey to entrepreneurship often starts at home. Over half (53%) of alumni had immediate family involved in running a small business when they were growing up and of those, 46% worked in that family business before starting their own.
The 100-hour business education programme is delivered by the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford.
The report also found the programme has a significant impact on productivity. 10KSB UK graduates increase their productivity by approximately 14% more than equivalent companies. In addition, based on direct feedback from participants, 85% report improving the quality of a product or service and 93% say they introduced new processes or systems after graduation.
Read Goldman Sachs 10KSB UK Impact Report: Celebrating 15 Years of Growth here.
