I barely have a GCSE to my name — now I'm enjoying a £60m payday
The entrepreneur Lee Biggins, who left school with only a hotchpotch of Es, Fs and Gs after his exams, has enjoyed a £60 million payday from his online recruitment business.
Woeful grades and later dropping out of college at 17 did not stop the former carpet-fitter from setting up a business that enabled jobseekers to upload their CVs for prospective employers to vet.
The hefty payment from CV-Library, based in Fleet, Hampshire, is one of the largest dividends received by an individual business owner in recent years and represents a more than decent return on his start-up costs.
He began CV-Library with little in the way of computer skills after spending £899 on a PC and a few pounds more on a book called The Internet Start-up Bible.
Biggins, 47, stressed that poor exam results did not rule out success in life, adding that the education system could do better to nurture budding business stars.
He said: 'Entrepreneurialism is all about mindset. You've got to be driven, always looking forward, hustling, not taking no for an answer, and having belief in an idea.
'You can 100 per cent have that and not be great academically, and that is where our existing school system is too narrowly focused. It often doesn't equip young people with that mindset, or the idea that hard work and determination is how you get ahead. I see too many people who come out of school or college and feel they are owed a living — the real world just doesn't work like that.'
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The idea for CV-Library emerged a few years after Biggins had left school and grown frustrated with life at Surefit Carpets, which his father Clive had been running in his local village of Crookham since 1971.
He had submitted a succession of applications to job agencies when he had the idea for a website where those looking for work could post their résumés, which would save time for both applicants and businesses.
Biggins did a computer literacy course, teamed up with a schoolfriend who had already built a website for car enthusiasts and landed a £9,000 bank loan from NatWest.
CV-Library was no overnight success but annual profits have now climbed to £27.6 million. Rolls-Royce, Barclays and the Metropolitan Police are among more than 10,000 employers currently using the website. Businesses pay to advertise jobs or access 21.7 million CVs submitted by people hunting for work. More than 136,200 roles are currently being advertised on the site.
Biggins's sizeable dividend — £60.6 million in the year to the end of June 2024 — and the ongoing success of CV-Library will push the entrepreneur (who is the sole shareholder in the company) higher up next year's Sunday Times Tax List.
He appeared in this year's rankings with an estimated contribution to the UK's public finances of £14.4 million. His company now employs 280 people and paid £7.5 million in corporation tax last year.
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Biggins's unimpressive academic record is not uncommon among successful entrepreneurs. Chris Dawson, the billionaire retailer reviving Wilko, left school without any qualifications and struggled to read or write. Theo Paphitis, the chairman of stationery retailer Ryman and a former panellist on the BBC's Dragons' Den, passed a single O-level, the forerunner of GCSEs.
Higher payroll taxes and Labour's plan to make firing harder for employers is hitting the jobs market, Biggins said. 'We've certainly seen a big impact from the national insurance tax increases in the budget and uncertainty over the new employment bill.
'All the recruiters and businesses we talk to are concerned over the higher cost and risks around hiring, and that's having a big impact on the number of vacancies being advertised. Some sectors are doing well but the overall outlook is still gloomy, and business confidence remains very low.'
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