Numbers of enterprises and local units produced from a snapshot of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 8 March 2024.

Shell had the highest annual revenue of all companies based in the United Kingdom in 2025, at approximately 284 billion U.S. dollars. BP had the second-highest annual revenue at over 189 billion dollars, followed by HSBC Holdings, which had a revenue of around 142 billion U.S. dollars. In terms of global employee numbers, however, Compass Group had the highest number among UK-based businesses, at approximately half a million in 2024, followed by Tesco at 336,400 and HSBC at almost 211,000. Big Oil, a banking giant, and Britain's top supermarket chain The two companies listed as having the most revenue in the UK this year are also two of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, alongside Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies. After a huge surge in energy prices in 2022, these companies saw their profits recede slightly in 2023, but clearly remain in strong financial positions as of 2024. HSBC Holdings, meanwhile, was the largest bank in Europe in terms of market capitalization, and was estimated to have the second-highest number of UK-based customers in 2024. The company with the fourth-highest revenue in this year, Tesco has by some distance the largest grocery-market share in Great Britain, a position it has maintained despite growing competition from discounters like Lidl and Aldi. UK economy health check In the first quarter of 2025, the UK economy grew by 0.7 percent, emerging from a brief slowdown in growth towards the end of 2024. Consumer Price inflation, has, however, started to increase, with the inflation rate reaching 3.5 percent in April, the highest rate since January 2024. Furthermore, the UK labor market is showing signs of weakness, with quite a high number of job losses since the start of the year. Alongside these generally negative signs, business confidence in the UK has been falling, with the main concern of UK firms being that of taxation, as of early 2025.

The 20,000+ registered companies with a registered address in Glasgow. The information is extracted from Companies House. It includes the company name, number, category (private limited, partnership), registered address, postcode, industry (SIC code), status (ex: active or liquidation), incorporation date... It is likely that some companies may just lie off Glasgow City Council's boundary. If you find a problem in the data, you can check the source either in the full UK list or by looking up a company or let us know. The data dictionary supplied by Companies House can be viewed here. There is also a data dictionary with field names and meanings contained in the resources. This dataset does not imply: - a partnership with Companies House - an endorsement by Companies House - a product approval by Companies House Licence: None glasgow-post-codes-py.txt - https://dataservices.open.glasgow.gov.uk/Download/Organisation/cc57ac4b-12d5-43b1-ad25-434638eec18c/Dataset/3093e34f-6dcb-4980-840b-965421c1b091/File/c2634107-bd43-4537-adb8-9046aeed844e/Version/c8fde78e-5396-4293-ac35-6f6c96a5d642

Gender Pay Gap legislation introduced in April 2017 requires all employers of 250 or more employees to publish their gender pay gap each year. The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed relative to men’s earnings.

You can also:

• https://gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk/Viewing/search-results?t=1&search=&orderBy=relevance" class="govuk-link">explore this data on a dashboard
• https://data.gov.uk/dataset/54219db1-dd98-49d9-a383-a5978bb0aeb9/gender-pay-gap" class="govuk-link">export all national gender pay gap data

Weekly data showing the number of Companies House incorporations, voluntary dissolutions accepted, and companies placed into compulsory dissolution in the UK. These are official statistics in development. Source: Companies House.

Individuals which have been disqualified from holding the post of a company director in the United Kingdom following a court decision.

This dataset provides details of all UK incorporated companies with equity listed on the London Stock Exchange as at 30 June 2020. Names, market capitalisation, market admitted to and date of admission were taken from LSE data. This data was then cross referenced against the UK Companies House register (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/) to provide each such company with its registered number and jurisdiction of incorporation. All companies were then cross-referenced against the Association of Investment Companies website (https://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/find-compare-investment-companies). All those not listed on the AIC's website were then examined to identify if any evidence could be identified that their headquarters were outside their jurisdictions of incorporation, with any such jurisdiction being noted.

A survey conducted in April and May 2023 revealed that around 35 percent of organizations in the United States and 40 percent of organizations in the United Kingdom pay higher costs for international data transfers due to data privacy regulations, but they also find it manageable. Furthermore, approximately 35 percent of respondents from both countries think the regulations encourage businesses by guaranteeing that the data will be safeguarded in other countries.

The Business Structure Database (BSD) contains a small number of variables for almost all business organisations in the UK. The BSD is derived primarily from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), which is a live register of data collected by HM Revenue and Customs via VAT and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) records. The IDBR data are complimented with data from ONS business surveys. If a business is liable for VAT (turnover exceeds the VAT threshold) and/or has at least one member of staff registered for the PAYE tax collection system, then the business will appear on the IDBR (and hence in the BSD). In 2004 it was estimated that the businesses listed on the IDBR accounted for almost 99 per cent of economic activity in the UK. Only very small businesses, such as the self-employed were not found on the IDBR.

The IDBR is frequently updated, and contains confidential information that cannot be accessed by non-civil servants without special permission. However, the ONS Virtual Micro-data Laboratory (VML) created and developed the BSD, which is a 'snapshot' in time of the IDBR, in order to provide a version of the IDBR for research use, taking full account of changes in ownership and restructuring of businesses. The 'snapshot' is taken around April, and the captured point-in-time data are supplied to the VML by the following September. The reporting period is generally the financial year. For example, the 2000 BSD file is produced in September 2000, using data captured from the IDBR in April 2000. The data will reflect the financial year of April 1999 to March 2000. However, the ONS may, during this time, update the IDBR with data on companies from its own business surveys, such as the Annual Business Survey (SN 7451).

The data are divided into 'enterprises' and 'local units'. An enterprise is the overall business organisation. A local unit is a 'plant', such as a factory, shop, branch, etc. In some cases, an enterprise will only have one local unit, and in other cases (such as a bank or supermarket), an enterprise will own many local units.

For each company, data are available on employment, turnover, foreign ownership, and industrial activity based on Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)92, SIC 2003 or SIC 2007. Year of 'birth' (company start-up date) and 'death' (termination date) are also included, as well as postcodes for both enterprises and their local units. Previously only pseudo-anonymised postcodes were available but now all postcodes are real.

The ONS is continually developing the BSD, and so researchers are strongly recommended to read all documentation pertaining to this dataset before using the data.

Linking to Other Business Studies
These data contain IDBR reference numbers. These are anonymous but unique reference numbers assigned to business organisations. Their inclusion allows researchers to combine different business survey sources together. Researchers may consider applying for other business data to assist their research.

Latest Edition Information
For the sixteenth edition (March 2024), data files and a variable catalogue document for 2023 have been added.

Compass Group had by far the highest number of global employees among companies based in the United Kingdom as of 2025, at approximately 500,000 employees. Tesco had the second-highest number of employees at around 336,400, followed by HSBC Holdings which had 211,000 employees. In the same year, HSBC Holdings had an annual revenue of 142.3 billion U.S. dollars, the third-highest among UK-based companies. The oil and gas giant Shell had the highest annual revenue at over 283 billion dollars, ahead of BP at 189 billion dollars. How many businesses are there in the UK? In 2024, there were approximately 5.5 million business enterprises in the UK, down from a peak of 5.98 million in 2020. Although there were just 1,930 large firms that employed 1,000 people or more, these firms employed more than a quarter of the UK's private sector workforce, and made a combined turnover of approximately 1.69 trillion British pounds. As of this year, the construction industry had the highest number of enterprises by sector, at over 870,000. The sector with the most workers was that of wholesale and retail, which collectively employed just under 4.9 million people in 2024, and also had the highest turnover compared to other sectors, at over 1.8 trillion pounds. Current UK economic climate Although the UK economy is expected to grow in 2025, growth has been downgraded from earlier forecasts, while inflation and unemployment are expected to be higher than initially thought. According to the business confidence index, sentiment among businesses at the end of 2024 was lower than it has been since early 2021. Furthermore, since the start of 2025, businesses have been shedding jobs at an accelerating rate, possibly due to recent tax rises, which was seen as the main external concern of businesses in early 2025. The precarious state of the UK's government finances, and potential tax rises in the next budget, are also likely feeding into this pessimistic mood.

Quarterly data on the value and number of mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving UK companies with values of £1 million or more.

The dataset provides insights into niche organizations in the B2B landscape. It helps identify firms by industry, size or location-- such as small or medium scale companies, local businesses, or specialized firms that are difficult to find through conventional channels.

Uncover historical ownership history and changes over time by performing a reverse Whois lookup for the company uk-business-hosting-limited.

Companies participating in UK Capacity Market auctions, sorted by capacity or component count

Uncover historical ownership history and changes over time by performing a reverse Whois lookup for the company Search-ROI-UK.

Comprehensive dataset of 977 Executive search firms in United Kingdom as of June, 2025. Includes verified contact information (email, phone), geocoded addresses, customer ratings, reviews, business categories, and operational details. Perfect for market research, lead generation, competitive analysis, and business intelligence. Download a complimentary sample to evaluate data quality and completeness.

Annual and quarterly data for the latest profitability estimates of UK companies.