Newspage Small and Micro Business Confidence Index

"January has been my best month since the middle of 2021 so I am actually very confident that business will remain buoyant in my sector. With many people not wishing to return to the corporate fold, web design and website DIY are an expanding market and enquiries are increasing rather than decreasing."

If there's two thing the pandemic has done rather successfully then it's: 1) wobble people's mental health and 2) allow them to reassess their priorities for how they live their life. Both of these problems are regularly addressed within my day to day work with people. As a small business owner and clinical psychologist I am passionate about people being able to access qualified mental health treatment and advice in a timely way and having a variety of ways to do this to suit all budgets. I have organised my business model around this concept and start 2022 from a position of optimism and compassionate focus.

"On balance, I am definitely positive about our outlook in 2022. The easing of restrictions will take the shackles off the economy and start to restore confidence. However my main concern is the cost of living crisis. This will hit disposable incomes hard and will no doubt have a knock-on effect on spending with non-essential businesses."

I'm feeling more confident that I did in December, here's hoping 2022 is a vastly improved version of 2021. The world of events are opening up so this gives me hope!

Distractions everywhere, whether it be ‘partygate’, calls to scrap the planned NI increase or just the sheer buffoonness of the man leading the country. All of this makes it harder for us small businesses to stand out from the distractions with the quality of service we pride ourselves on

"I've got as much work booked for 2022 as I did in the whole of 2021 so I'm already confident that this will be a better year than last. But that wouldn't have been difficult. I've also had a few positive conversations recently so I think things are starting to open up again."

I've had more enquiries in January than I did across the last 3 months of 2021, so my confidence is rising. I think the pandemic has encouraged many people to re-assess their priorities and explore their financial situation in more depth. There's a growing appetite to improve work-life balance and assess the viability of changing career or working less hours. Spending habits and relationships with money are also coming under the spotlight as people prepare for the reported rise in the cost of living.

Things are still very tough for the travel and hospitality sector, who's millions of employees have been overlooked by the government. That said we are all tentatively feeling confident of a return to (near) normality in travel this year

"As a small business owner, I am pretty confident going into 2022. It really feels like we are over the worst of the pandemic and public appetite for any further restrictions is waning rapidly. One of the big issues this year will be inflation, although I think a slowdown in government spending and small interest rate rise will tackle this."