Rightmove’s happy places are the worst for entrepreneurs

Unhappy people are more likely to set up their own businesses than their happier counterparts.

New research cross-checked firms’ financial data from Company Check with happiness ratings from Rightmove’s recent Happy at Home report.

It found that the unhappiest areas of the country had the highest instances of new business incorporation in 2014.

In Barking and Dagenham, the least happy place in the UK according to Rightmove’s study, 21,400 new companies incorporated last year, the second highest of all the 130 towns and cities surveyed.

Eight of the top ten places for new business figures were in the bottom half for happiness, while only one place out of the happiest 50, Bristol, made it into the top ten for the number of new businesses.

Rightmove’s happiest place, Harrogate, ranked a lowly 76th for entrepreneurship.

Alastair Campbell, founder of Company Check, said: “Entrepreneurship is an essential part of the UK’s economy, with well over 5m new businesses filing accounts with Companies House in 2014 alone.

“The correlation between happiness and entrepreneurship highlighted in this research cannot explain cause and effect, but it wouldn’t surprise me if entrepreneurship was, at least in part, a result of dissatisfaction.

“The data suggests that the less happy someone is, the more likely they are to set up their own business.

“I started my first company because I didn’t agree with how other people ran their businesses and wanted to do it my way. As business people, we shouldn’t be afraid to say that we’re unhappy with how things are and look to improve them.”

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6 Comments

  1. The Outsider

    You should start mentioning it everyday on a property forum Robert.  That won’t get infuriating at all!

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    1. Robert May

      The thing is Outsider, Ros, Nick, Charlie and now  Selan, I  don’t mention  what I am doing everyday, I put quite a lot of effort into supporting Eye and the stories published on here. I assess the  weak, also ran, stories and try to generate comments, so although I am here and posting every day very few posts are about me or what I am doing.

      With 1700  words in 3 stories on consecutive working day dedicated to one  vexatious subject I hardly think a single 40 word post really warranted quite as much fuss as it received yesterday.

      Yesterday you deleted posts from 2 new posters to Eye simply because they were supportive of what I am doing for the industry, having spoken to them both the censorship of their posts wasn’t well received at all.

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  2. PeeBee

    Does someone want to tell me what the chuff is going on with the comments on this thread?

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    1. Robert May

      Its like this; JJ mentioned Portal Voldemort, Dobby posted a reply, you mentioned Portal Voldemort,.

      The posts were draped in the cloak of invisibility to protect the sensitive Dark Lords

      Then JJ  who has succumbed to the power of Portal Voldemort posted again. It’s all too much!

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      1. PeeBee

        Ahhh…

        That’s clarified it, then!

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  3. JJ

    Message sent, thanks for your help.

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