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Australia's newest small businesses are cleaners, builders and personal trainers

Rounded

Key Facts:

• Data from sole trader platform Rounded shows creative and content work — including graphic design, photography, copywriting and web design — has fallen from 44.7% to 30.4% of new users between 2021 and 2026, with writing and journalism down 58% and graphic design down 35% over the same period.
• Physical and in-person trades have grown sharply over the same period, with cleaning up 77%, health and fitness up 75%, IT consulting up 54%, and construction up 46% as a share of new sign-ups.
• Rounded co-founder Oliver Garside noted the shift means a new user is now just as likely to run a cleaning, personal training, or construction business as to be a photographer or designer.
• The sole trader population turns over quickly, with businesses on the platform running for a median of two years and three months, meaning the overall user base can change substantially within just a few years.
• In response to the growing proportion of mobile and physical businesses amongst its users, Rounded has launched Trax, a kilometre-tracking app now available on both iOS and Android.

New user data from Rounded shows creative and content work has fallen from 45% to 30% of new sole traders since 2021, while cleaning, construction and health and fitness have all grown sharply

 

The kind of business a new sole trader is most likely to start has changed substantially in five years, according to new analysis of platform data from sole trader business support specialist Rounded.

 

Among the thousands of sole traders who told Rounded what industry they work in when they signed up between 2021 and 2026, creative and content occupations — including graphic design, photography, copywriting, web design and video production — made up 44.7 per cent of new users in 2021. By 2026, that share had fallen to 30.4 per cent.

 

Physical and in-person work has moved the other way. Cleaning, construction, health and fitness, and trades industries together rose from 18.3 per cent of new users in 2021 to 28.3 per cent in 2026. Cleaning alone is up 77 per cent as a share of signups, health and fitness 75 per cent, IT consulting 54 per cent and construction 46 per cent.

 

In stark contrast, writing and journalism is down 58 per cent, graphic design down 35 per cent, web design down 32 per cent, photography down 26 per cent, digital marketing down 18 per cent, and video production down 15%.

 

"We've watched this shift happen in real time, one sign-up at a time, first through COVID and then as the landscape has continued to adapt to new norms and changing realities,” said Oliver Garside, co-founder of Rounded. "Five years ago, if you asked us what a new Rounded customer looked like, we'd have said a photographer or a designer working for themselves, and while this group still make up a large cohort of our customers, a new Rounded user is just as likely to be someone who cleans, runs a personal training business, or does construction work.”

 

A population that turns over fast

Part of the reason the shift is visible after only five years is that the sole trader population itself doesn't sit still. Businesses on the Rounded platform that have wound up run for a median of two years and three months from signup to their final use of the software. A group that refreshes that often will look different every few years almost by definition.

 

Rounded is not attributing the change to a single cause. The steepest fall in creative and content signups happened between 2021 and late 2022, with a second, smaller decline from early 2025, producing two distinct movements, rather than one steady trend.

 

"We're not going to pretend that there’s a single, neat explanation for all this,” said Garside. "What we can say is that it happened, it happened fast, and no-one in the business of supporting sole traders can afford to assume that the customer in front of them looks like the customer from five years ago, or will look like in another five years to come.

 

"There's no such thing as a typical Rounded customer anymore, if there ever really was one," he added. "We'd rather build for who's actually signing up than who used to."

 

It’s that philosophy that led to the launch of Trax, Rounded’s new kilometre tracking app, available to download from Google Play today, joining the iOS version on Apple’s App Store. “With the changing face of Australia’s sole traders increasingly shifting towards more mobile businesses, Trax was created to serve this fast-growing new market.”

 

The full five-year industry breakdown, including year-by-year figures for every category, is available to media on request.

 

For more information on Trax and links to the downloads on the App Store and with Google Play, visit trax.rounded.com.au.

ENDS

Click here for imagery.

 

1. Analysis based on self-reported industry data collected at signup from Rounded's Australian user base, covering 11,051 users who signed up between 1 January 2021 and 27 July 2026 and provided an industry. This is 50.7 per cent of the 21,793 Australian signups in that period. Users may select more than one industry; figures reflect share of total industry selections, not share of users. Full breakdown available on request.

 

2. "Creative and content" industries: graphic design, web design, photography, writing and journalism, digital marketing, video production, arts and entertainment, and music production. "Physical and in-person" industries: cleaning, construction, health and fitness, other trades, beauty, mechanical services, hospitality, farming and agriculture, and electrical services. Grouping and category definitions are Rounded's own, applied for the purposes of this analysis.

 

3. 2021 figures drawn from 3,751 industry selections across 2,240 respondents. 2026 figures drawn from 2,125 industry selections across 1,369 respondents to 27 July 2026, a partial year.

 

4. Individual industry movements (share of total industry selections, 2021–22 average against 2025–26 average): cleaning +77%, health and fitness +75%, IT consulting +54%, construction +46%, finance and accounting +22%, other trades +9%, professional services +6%, video production −15%, arts and entertainment −17%, digital marketing −18%, photography −26%, web design −32%, graphic design −35%, writing and journalism −58%.

 

5. Median tenure of 819 days (two years, three months) reflects the interval between signup and final platform use for Australian users whose stated reason for leaving Rounded was that they had stopped running a business, n = 1,677. Provided as context for how quickly the user base turns over; not a claim about the reasons users leave Rounded generally.

 

6. This analysis describes Rounded's own user base and should not be read as a representative survey of the Australian sole trader population. Figures are provided as "among Rounded users" or "Rounded platform data" throughout.

About us:

Rounded is Australia's accounting platform built for sole traders. Since its founding in 2015, it has helped over 13,000 Australian sole traders manage invoicing, expenses, BAS lodgements and EOFY tax in one place, with 2 million invoices raised on the platform totalling $2.4 billion AUD. Rounded has grown without outside investment, driven entirely by the needs of its customers.

Contact details:

Lee Robson

Chief Storytelling Officer

iStories

M: +61 412 024 651

E:  [email protected]