Welcome to Enterprise & Entrepreneurship - Self Employment and Starting-up
Self-employment and Entrepreneurship
Are you full of good ideas and like to make things happen, but you don’t know whether starting-up your own business is for you?
About nine percent of students in university run a business as a side hustle and two per cent of UK graduates decide to become their own boss directly after graduation, and many more aspire to run their own business in the longer term.
Whether you already have a clear idea and are taking practical steps towards your dream, or you are just starting to consider self-employment, there are a number of issues that you will need to think about before deciding if this is the best option for you including business structure and planning, lifestyle implications, finance and premises.
Why consider it?
There are many potential benefits of being an entrepreneur or self-employed, including:
However, you also need to consider some of the risks:
Would it suit me?
You will need a strong product or service to offer. In addition, having the following personal qualities will help:
What are the options?
Where can I get further help?
The Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Team at BCU offer advice and support for students and graduates interested in self-employment and starting-up a commercial or social enterprise. We have a range networking events, workshops, start-up programmes and other activities for UK, EU and International students, graduates and staff across the academic year to reach, engage and help participants.
Please see the Activities page for some further information on the sessions and support we offer as well as the pages for the start-up programmes we run that help students and graduates to become self-employed or to set-up commercial or social enterprises - BSEEN for UK and EU students and graduates and Start-up Visa for International graduates
Support for BCU Staff
The Enterprise and Entrepreneurship team are also happy to help BCU staff looking to become self-employed or start a commercial or social enterprise as well as offers support to Course Leaders and lecturers across the university to offer students insight in to enterprise and entrepreneurship on the curriculum with one-off and on-going sessions both on undergraduate and post-graduate degrees. We can also support the development of enterprise and entrepreneurship modules and courses, such as the MSc in Applied Entrepreneurship we are helping to develop in the Business School.
We aim to replicate success like this across other schools and courses and Course Leaders and Lecturers within BCU that require support to develop or deliver enterprise and entrepreneurship activity on courses please contact - enterprise@bcu.ac.uk
Further resources