Standing view · business · Gloucestershire and Wiltshire
rising, held with established confidence, formed on 5 October 2026 from movements in 2026.
Businesses employing 50 to 99 people in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire has been rising, across two consecutive years. The band stood at 620 in 2025 and 655 in 2026, recorded as rising in both against the usual pattern, while businesses employing 5 to 9 people fell, at 6,385 in 2026. There were 57,370 businesses in 2025 and 58,170 in 2026, with 45,415 employing 0 to 4 people, and business sites at 66,945 in 2025 and 67,785 in 2026. A mid band growing while the small-employer band shrinks is a shift in where jobs sit rather than a change in the number of firms.
A view is formed only where the evidence names a figure you can check. Each movement listed as a reason had to be large enough to matter and distinctive in at least one way — unusual against this area's own history, unusual against comparable areas, or sustained over several periods. A movement shared with peers counts for less, because it says something about the country rather than about Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Where no figure supports a direction we hold no view rather than a hedged one.
| Measure | Period | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses employing 50 to 99 people | 2025 | rising |
| Businesses employing 5 to 9 people | 2026 | falling |
| Businesses employing 50 to 99 people | 2026 | rising |
These figures carry no defensible direction of their own: a rising house price is good news to an owner and bad news to someone trying to buy, so we do not score one as an improvement. They are shown because they are part of the picture, and they did not decide the view above.
| Measure | Period | Series |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses | 2025 | — |
| Business sites | 2025 | — |
| Businesses | 2026 | — |
| Businesses employing 0 to 4 people | 2026 | — |
| Business sites | 2026 | — |