Businesses in Scotland: 2024

Ownership (registered businesses only)

This publication classifies registered private sector businesses according to ownership. They can be either ‘UK owned - Scotland based’, ‘UK owned - Rest of the UK (RUK) based’ or ‘Abroad-owned’.

Businesses with their ultimate base outside Scotland are either RUK based or Abroad-owned. As at March 2024, these businesses represented 3.5% of businesses. They also accounted for 35.5% of employment and 55.3% of turnover.

Between March 2023 and March 2024, the number of Abroad-owned businesses increased from 3,315 to 3,530. This meant that Abroad-owned businesses operating in Scotland continued to outnumber RUK based businesses. There were 2,555 RUK based businesses as at March 2024. Abroad-owned businesses also provided more Scottish jobs than RUK based businesses (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Abroad-owned businesses provided more Scottish jobs than RUK based businesses as at March 2024.

Private sector jobs in Scotland, by business ownership, 2010 to 2024.

Source: Businesses in Scotland 2024 from the Scottish Government.  For Figure 5 data see table 3.

As stated before, 35.5% of private sector employment was in businesses with their ultimate base outside Scotland. We can break this down further. 15.2% of Scottish private sector employment was in businesses with their ultimate base in the RUK. 20.3% of Scottish private sector employment was in Abroad-owned businesses. The share of employment in Abroad-owned businesses varies by industry sector. For example, 41.6% of ‘Information and communication’ employment was in Abroad-owned businesses. In comparison, 4.4% of ‘Real estate activities’ employment was in Abroad-owned businesses.

Figure 6: As at March 2024, 41.6% of ‘Information and communication’ employment was in Abroad-owned businesses.

Share of employment by ownership and industry sector, as at March 2024.

Source: Businesses in Scotland 2024 from the Scottish Government.  For Figure 6 data see table 3.

As at March 2024, there were 1,415 EU Abroad-owned businesses operating in Scotland. These businesses employed 135,080 people and generated a turnover of over £56 billion. This was 43.1% of all turnover from Abroad-owned registered businesses in Scotland.

We can also look at individual countries. USA-owned businesses accounted for the highest share of Scotland’s Abroad-owned businesses, employment and turnover. As at March 2024, there were 735 USA-owned businesses operating in Scotland. These businesses employed 115,080 people and generated a turnover of over £38 billion. This equates to 29.4% of all employment and all turnover from Abroad-owned registered businesses in Scotland.