More people will have set up their own businesses last year than in 2008, it has been predicted.
Numbers show that around 476,000 firms were formed in the first ten months of the 2009, meaning the final figure is likely to be higher than the 525,000 start-ups that began 12 months earlier, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The newspaper, which cited official industry figures due to be published later this week, said one bank believed some of the new firms will have been formed because of people being made redundant.
"Barclays economists believe that a large proportion of the new businesses were being formed simply to put food on the table," the report said.
If the number is higher than that of 2008, it would mean new business creation has increased for three years in a row.
This, the paper said, was due to more people being self employed, as well as it becoming easier to start up a company using the internet.
Managing director of Barclays' Local Business division Steve Cooper was quoted as saying the figures "have been more resilient than we thought they would be".
He added that the market for small companies is "starting to bounce back".
One man who has set up a successful business after losing his job is Steve Chatterton.
He told the Grimsby Telegraph that since forming his Grimsby Seafood firm four months ago, business has been "thriving".
His company delivers frozen seafood and he said that he has already been taking orders from places like Doncaster and Scunthorpe.
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