Sole trader or limited company?
What incorporating actually changes — liability, cost, and how much of your life becomes public. Includes the identity verification requirement that now applies to every existing director.
Checked 12 August 2026
Guides
The admin nobody explains when you start selling your work. Written for one-person creative businesses, checked against the official sources, and dated so you can see how current they are.
Starting out
Free business support in Southampton (and how to actually use it)
There is a British Library Business & IP Centre on the first floor of Southampton Central Library. Free market research databases, free IP clinics, free studio space for product photos. Almost nobody knows.
Checked 12 August 2026
Money & tax
Self Assessment and Making Tax Digital
When you have to register, the £1,000 trading allowance, and the change that is already live: if you turn over more than £50,000 you have had to keep digital records and file quarterly since April 2026.
Checked 12 August 2026
Legal & data
Do you need to register with the ICO?
Most businesses that keep customer details on a computer must pay the annual data protection fee — £52 a year for a small business. How to check whether it applies to you, and what UK GDPR actually asks of a one-person business.
Checked 12 August 2026
Copyright, design right and trade marks for makers
You already own copyright in your work — it is automatic and free. What that does and does not cover, why commissioned work catches freelancers out, and when a trade mark is worth £205.
Checked 12 August 2026
Analysis of the local creative economy
We hold filed accounts for of the companies in this directory. These pages summarise what those figures show about how creative businesses here are actually sized — the numbers nobody currently publishes because nobody has assembled the list.