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Landscaping and gardening is a profession that sees a large number of self-employed start-ups every year.

Although there is no available data to show us how many landscaper and gardening start-ups fail, instinct would lead me to believe that it's a high number.

According to this article on the Independent "Of people [all professions] who were self-employed in 2009, 23 per cent were no longer so in 2014."

"There is, though, another kind of self-employment. In good times, when unemployment rates are low, employees realise there are opportunities out there to strike out on their own. They have been pulled rather than pushed. The new self-employed are disproportionately likely to say they are underemployed, desiring more hours."

The above statement appears to imply that because of the rise in voluntarily self-employed - i.e. those who chose the path of self-employment rather than those who were pushed into it - there is a glut of SMEs but a dearth of work to allow everyone to make a decent income.

This article from February this year suggests that in the United Sates, the amount of people choosing to go self-employed within the landscape industry has grown strongly "The biggest gains have been in lower-wage fields – photographers, landscaping workers, maids, and personal care aides."

Whilst there is no hard and fast data available in the UK with which to analyse the rate of start-ups - and subsequent rate of decline - within the landscape industry, after an experiment I conducted to 'gauge business activity and failures'  I was compelled to conclude that there is a high attrition rate within our industry.

I know from talking to owners SMEs that there is a shortage of skilled and/or willing employees, with many bosses struggling to fill positions. The south of the UK appears to be finding it harder to fill positions but there is evidence that there is a skill shortage across all of the UK.