How Many Companies Are There in the UK?

There were 5,555,130 businesses operating in the UK as of 2023—of this, 2,052,300 were registered as "companies", 365,330 as partnerships and 3,137,495 as sole proprietorships. But what do in-depth figures reveal about different types of businesses around the UK? Below we break down UK enterprise statistics to see the numbers by region and across different industries. Here's what we found.

Table of Contents

• Number of UK companies and businesses
  • by region
  • by industry
  • by size (employees)
• Growth in the number of UK businesses, 2000 to 2019

How Many Companies in the UK?

By October 2023, there were 2.05 million companies in the UK. But when you also take into account partnerships and sole traders, there are actually 5.56 million businesses operating in the United Kingdom. Nearly 3.2M people work as self employed (aka a sole trader/sole proprietor) and there are over 365K registered partnerships. In fact, 56% of UK businesses are sole proprietors and just 37% are companies.

While this is a lot of businesses, a lot of them are quite small, with no employees and low revenues. How many businesses are making decent turnover and employing staff? To find out, let's take a look at the number of businesses that are registered for VAT (which means annual turnover of more than £90,000 in 24/25) and/or PAYE (which means they have at least one employee earning £123 or more a week or getting expenses and benefits).

As of the end of 2023, there were 2.04 million companies registered for VAT and/or PAYE in the UK, plus 413K registered as a self proprietorship and 173K as partnerships. This means that 47% of partnerships are VAT and/or PAYE, 99% of companies are VAT and/or PAYE, but only 13% of sole proprietors are large enough (in terms of revenues and/or employees) to be registered for VAT and/or PAYE.

How Many Companies in Each Region of the UK?

The region of the UK with the most companies is London, perhaps not surprisingly. At the end of 2023 there were 1,049,405 businesses registered in the capital city. London also has the highest rate of businesses per person, with 1,477 businesses per 10,000 adults.

However, fewer London businesses employ people when compared to other regions. For example, in Yorkshire 27.9% of businesses employ at least one person—this is the highest rate in the UK and is noticeably higher than London's rate of just 24.3%.

Number of UK Businesses by Industry

There are more construction businesses in the UK than any other type. At the end of 2023 there were 883,065 construction businesses in the UK, most of which were sole proprietors—this accounted for 15.9% of businesses.

Businesses working in professional, scientific and technical activities are the next prolific, accounting for 771,285 or 13.9% of all UK businesses.

However, if you look at companies big enough to pay VAT or use PAYE then there are more professional, scientific & technical companies in the UK than any other industry. At last count, this industry accounted for over 415K VAT and/or PAYE companies, which is over 15% of all UK-registered VAT and/or PAYE companies.

When it comes to sole proprietors, construction is the biggest industry with a tally of over 59K businesses paying VAT and/or PAYE that are run by the self employed. And VAT/PAYE partnerships are dominated by agriculture, forestry & fishing businesses—there were 63,145 agriculture, forestry & fishing partnerships at last count, which means that 37% of all partnerships in the UK operate in ag, forestry and fishing.

Number of Businesses in the UK by Size

The vast majority of UK businesses have no employees—74%, in fact. Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which include businesses with fewer than 249 employees, made up for 99.9% of businesses in the UK in 2023.

Large businesses with 250 or more employees are relatively rare—there were around 8000 businesses of this size registered in the UK in 2023.

Growth in Businesses Over Time

There's been a 69% increase in the number of private sector businesses in the UK from 3.467 million in 2000 to 5.868 million 2019 (where private sector businesses are defined as companies including public corporations and nationalised bodies, sole proprietors and partnerships, but excluding Government and non-profit organisations).

The most growth was seen in businesses that don't employ anyone—for instance a "working proprietor" who is an owners of a business and does not work under a contract of employment in return for a wage or a salary. In fact, the number of non-employer businesses grew 89% from 2.356 million in 2000 to 4.458 million in 2019.

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