According to official figures, the number of self-employed people in the UK has risen 374,000 since the start of the financial crisis, reaching 4.2 million in April this year.
Kathryn Scott-Fletcher dropped out of three different colleges and, in November 2012, started claiming unemployment benefit.
“The dole is pretty bleak, because there’s no reason to get up and no jobs to apply for,” she says.
Although she had never thought about setting up a business, she joined the Leapfrog programme and had the idea for a knitwear business – called What would Katy do?
She had repeatedly been stopped on the street and asked where she had bought her woollen hats. She is a prolific knitter and had been making them herself for years.
“Overheads are really low, because I’m working from home. Each hat hardly costs me anything at all to make,” she says. Kathryn knits at least three hats each day by hand
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