More than one-third of all small businesses in the UK now operate from home.

The findings of the report, Invisible Businesses - the characteristics of home-based businesses in the UK, include:
The popular belief that home-based businesses are part-time, small and marginal does not reflect the reality. The majority provide jobs for other people and just over half are generating revenues of more than £50,000 per year
They are also dynamic: more than half of the respondents reporting increased sales in the previous year and 58 per cent intending to grow
Only a small minority of home based businesses are engaged in e-commerce for the majority of their revenue
The major reason for operating the business from home was cost minimisation and not lifestyle reasons such as flexibility on where to live

Professor Colin Mason, co-author of the study, said: "The study shows something of a reversal of business habits in the post industrial age, with more and more small companies operating from home rather than from premises in the cities."

"We also found that home businesses can breathe new life into communities by increasing social and economic activity in their neighbourhoods, from increasing demand for complementary business services such as copy and printing shops and postal services, to coffee shops for meetings with clients."