Lorna Collins, director of female entrepreneur mentoring programme Flying Start, says the level of opportunity for women wishing to start their own businesses has increased.

She explains: ‘The difference is that we’ve gained momentum in the whole women’s enterprise movement and we’ve started to have a broader impact.’

In particular, she comments, female graduates from the media or creative disciplines are turning their ideas to business, rather than working for other people.

Women from these areas are ‘prime candidates’ for starting their own firms or working as freelancers, she adds.

According to figures from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform published in August 2007, there were around 4.6 million business enterprises at the beginning of 2006, with small and medium-sized enterprises accounting for 58.9 per cent of employment in the UK.