Trends Research is the UK's specialist SME research company. We field surveys to a 750,000-strong panel of small and medium businesses — with a 2,000-response minimum on every project — to give corporates and PR agencies data that stands up in the boardroom and the headlines alike.
Surveys and insight delivered for
We're not a generalist B2B agency dabbling in small business. SME research is what we do — and our access to the UK's largest engaged SME audience is unmatched.
As part of Capital Business Media Group, publishers of Business Matters — the UK's largest SME magazine since 1986 — we recruit and engage respondents you cannot reach through general consumer panels.
About our parent groupNo survey we run goes out with fewer than 2,000 SME responses. That's a statistically robust base every time — giving you the cross-cuts a 500-response panel simply cannot.
Our methodologyOur analysts pair human research craft with AI-driven coding, theme extraction and benchmark comparisons — so you get the quantifiable, attributable data UK newsrooms publish.
Built for PR-led researchSizing, segmentation, brand tracking, NPS, product validation and policy work — all conducted with UK SME owners and decision-makers at the scale your strategy team needs.
See corporate servicesNews-hooked questionnaire design, regional and sector cross-cuts, fast turnaround and quotable spokesperson stats — all from the SME voices that get UK newsrooms picking up the phone.
See PR servicesA typical Trends Research strategic project moves through five disciplined stages over 10 working days. Press-led, headline-ready surveys compress that into as little as 3 days — combining human research design with AI-assisted analysis to compress the timeline without compromising the rigour.
Joint scoping, questionnaire design and cross-cut planning with your team — typically 2 working days.
Live to our SME panel via Business Matters channels, with daily response monitoring — 3–5 working days.
Open-text coding, theme clustering and sentiment work performed in hours, validated by our analysts.
Insight deck plus, where useful, a press-ready narrative with the stats and quotes journalists will actually use.
Recent Trends Research surveys have driven front-page and lead business stories across the UK national press, broadcast and trade media.
Survey of UK family-business and farming SMEs quantified the investment, employment and succession impact of proposed IHT changes — cited across national and trade press.
In the newsSME confidence and investment-intention survey released in the week of the fiscal event — became one of the leading SME data points referenced in coverage.
In the newsOur long-running barometer of UK SME confidence, hiring intent and policy sentiment — feeding monthly editorial across Business Matters and partner outlets.
Insights & reportsTrends Research consistently deliver the kind of SME data that holds up to scrutiny — the response volumes are real, the cross-cuts are usable, and the team understand what a journalist actually wants on the end of the phone. — Senior consultant, top-10 UK PR agency (anonymised)
Our active panel sits at over 750,000 UK SME owners and decision-makers, recruited and re-engaged through Business Matters, the daily SME news platform, sector newsletters and partner channels across the Capital Business Media Group.
Because that's the floor at which you can publish robust national, regional and sectoral cross-cuts — and the level UK national newsrooms and corporate strategy teams ask for. Going below 2,000 makes claims harder to defend.
A standard strategic project takes 10 working days end-to-end. We can compress to as little as 3 working days for time-sensitive PR-led, headline-ready research — while keeping the 2,000-response floor.
AI handles the heavy lifting in open-text coding, theme extraction, sentiment and benchmark comparison — always validated by human analysts. It doesn't write the questionnaire and it doesn't replace the analytical judgement of our team.
Yes. Most clients use us for large-sample quantitative work, but our qualitative team runs SME owner depths, mini-groups and concept-testing programmes alongside.
