Ceri Nursaw, Gary Packham and Omkar Singh

The Government has set out an ambitious vision: to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business. It is a vision built on the recognition that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are the engine of the UK economy, driving innovation, employment and productivity.

If entrepreneurship is so important to achieving that ambition, an important question follows:

Are we doing enough to develop entrepreneurial capabilities across our education system? It is a question that deserves serious discussion.

There are many reasons to be optimistic. Over the past decade, enterprise education has made significant progress. Universities have expanded enterprise and entrepreneurship provision, student venture support has grown, and there is increasing recognition that enterprise education is about much more than starting a business. It is about developing the confidence, creativity, resilience and opportunity recognition that enable people to create value throughout their careers and communities.

Yet progress has not been consistent and if anything, the UK seems to be falling behind other nations in terms of the provision and quality of enterprise education in schools, colleges and universities (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2025).

While examples of excellent practice exist across the UK, the wider picture raises important questions about whether enterprise education is sufficiently connected, inclusive and sustainable to support the Government’s long-term economic ambitions.

This article is intended to begin a national conversation about the future of enterprise education in the UK. From September, we will explore a number of the key themes in greater depth and invite colleagues from education, business and policy to share their perspectives, experiences and ideas.

Are we building the enterprise and entrepreneurship pipeline?

Entrepreneurial capability does not suddenly emerge when someone reaches university or decides to start a business. Like many other capabilities, it develops over time through exposure, experience and opportunity.

Research shows that an increasing proportion of young people in the UK are interested in pursuing entrepreneurship, but many don’t know what to do or where to start. Thus, while higher education may have expanded enterprise provision, there are growing concerns about the strength and viability of the pipeline.

Many young people have limited exposure to entrepreneurship during their school years and opportunities remain inconsistent across different parts of the education system.

This matters because enterprise education is not simply about preparing future business founders. Early experiences can influence confidence, aspiration, and creativity, even before entrepreneurship is considered a possible career pathway.

One area for discussion is whether enterprise education should become a more coherent part of the learner journey from school through further education, higher education and into lifelong learning.

How do we ensure every learner can develop these capabilities and is the curriculum in our schools too narrow and conformist to nurture entrepreneurial mindsets and skills?

Have we become too focused on Scale-Ups?

Entrepreneurship is often viewed through the lens of business creation, economic growth and scale. A logic driven by the need for ‘big wins’, scarce resources and return on investment.

New ventures matter, and supporting entrepreneurs remains essential to economic growth. Growth is not a natural and prevalent phenomenon but the aggregate impact of a sector, predominantly made up of the self-employed and micro businesses, to the UK economy, remains significant. A fact that education should not lose sight of against a backdrop dominated by the need to find and support the next ‘unicorn’.

However, enterprise education also has a broader purpose.

The capabilities developed through enterprise education initiative, resilience, problem solving, collaboration, creativity and opportunity recognition are valuable whether someone starts a business, works within an established organisation, contributes to public services or creates social value within their community.

Perhaps the conversation should move beyond asking how many businesses are created and instead consider how enterprise education develops entrepreneurial capability across society?

How can we better recognise the wider contribution enterprise education makes to industry, business and society?

Who has access to enterprise education?

Although enterprise education is becoming more widely embedded across higher education, access remains uneven.

Opportunities can vary between institutions, disciplines and regions. Students studying business subjects often have greater exposure than those in engineering, healthcare, science or the creative disciplines, despite many of these areas having significant innovation and commercial potential.

Geography also shapes opportunity. Access to entrepreneurial ecosystems, mentors, business networks and specialist support is not distributed equally across the UK.

If entrepreneurial talent exists everywhere, opportunity should too. This raises wider questions about how enterprise education can become more inclusive, ensuring that learners are not disadvantaged by where they study, what they study or where they live.

Where are the greatest gaps in access and what examples already exist of institutions successfully widening participation and creating more inclusive enterprise ecosystems?

Can the current system deliver sustainably?

Many institutions have demonstrated remarkable commitment to enterprise education, often developing innovative programmes, incubators and support services despite significant financial pressures.

The challenge is whether the current system provides sufficient capacity to sustain and expand this work.

Enterprise education depends on skilled educators, long-term institutional commitment, effective partnerships and stable investment. As resources become increasingly constrained across education, maintaining and growing enterprise activity becomes more challenging.

This raises broader questions about whether funding, incentives and accountability frameworks are sufficiently aligned to support long-term enterprise and entrepreneurship outcomes.

Enterprise education should be a priority so what changes are needed to ensure institutions can build sustainable capacity?

What does an entrepreneurial university really look like?

The idea of the entrepreneurial university has become increasingly prominent in higher education. Yet being entrepreneurial is about much more than supporting start-ups or commercialising research.

It is about creating institutions where entrepreneurial thinking is embedded across leadership, curriculum, partnerships, culture and student experience. It is about encouraging innovation, collaboration, experimentation and value creation throughout the institution, which is also, increasingly anchored within a place and/or region.

There are already inspiring examples of universities leading this agenda in different ways. The challenge is understanding how these approaches can be shared, adapted and strengthened across the sector.

Rather than asking whether universities are entrepreneurial, perhaps a more useful focus should be on how institutions continue to develop entrepreneurial capability in ways that reflect their different missions, communities and regional contexts.

What should an entrepreneurial university look like in the next decade?

Join the Conversation

The Government’s ambition to make the UK the best place to start and grow a business presents an opportunity to think differently about enterprise education.

If entrepreneurial capability is fundamental to future economic growth, innovation and productivity, then enterprise education deserves to be part of a much wider national conversation. Entrepreneurship should not be seen as a specialist activity, but rather an integral part of how we prepare people, businesses and communities to create value throughout their lives and careers.

This article is the first in a series exploring the future of enterprise education in the UK. Beginning in early September, we will examine each of these themes in greater depth, bringing together evidence, perspectives and practical examples from across education, business and policy.

We know there is already outstanding work taking place across the country. We also know there are different perspectives on where the priorities should lie.

We would therefore like to invite colleagues from across education, business, government and the wider enterprise ecosystem to help shape this conversation.

• What do you believe are the biggest challenges facing enterprise education in the UK?
• Where are the gaps in the current system and what are the opportunities?
• What examples of effective practice deserve greater recognition?
• And if you could change one thing about the current system, what would it be?

We welcome written responses, case studies, evidence and examples of practice for inclusion in future articles throughout this series.

By bringing together different perspectives, we hope to develop a richer conversation about how enterprise education can better support learners, institutions, businesses and the UK’s long-term economic ambitions.