Home care has been identified as one of the UK’s largest and fastest-growing mission-led business sectors, according to a landmark new census published by Allia Impact and Beauhurst Insights.
The report, The Impact Business Tipping Point: A Data-Driven Census of the UK’s Mission-Led Business Landscape, is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, mapping more than 150,000 mission-led organisations across the UK that together generate £37bn in annual turnover and support 1.12 million jobs.
Among the key findings, home care accounts for 5% of all mission-led businesses in the UK and sits within the top eight sectors that collectively make up over half (51%) of the country’s mission-led organisations. Even more notably, home care and domiciliary care were named the largest single sub-group of “impact-first” businesses, organisations whose primary purpose is delivering social impact, accounting for 12% of all such active organisations nationally.
The wider data paints an encouraging picture for the sector. Mission-led businesses have grown by around 61% since 2016, comfortably outpacing the 42% growth seen across the general UK business population, while also proving more resilient, with a five-year survival rate of almost 70% compared to 45-48% nationally. Since 2011, these businesses have raised more than £30bn in external funding, although the report notes that care-based organisations continue to attract less investment than technology-led counterparts.
Martin Clark, chief executive of Allia Impact, said the census “challenges the misconception that prioritising impact comes at the expense of business growth,” adding that with the right support, the UK could move from simply measuring the impact economy to actively building it.
For Bluebird Care, this research reinforces what our franchise network sees every day: that delivering high-quality, person-centred care and building sustainable, thriving businesses are not competing goals – they go hand in hand. As one of the sectors leading this growth, home care providers across the country continue to demonstrate that purpose-driven organisations can also be powerful engines of economic activity, employment and innovation.
Read the full story on Home Care Insight: Home care among UK’s fastest-growing mission-led sectors