Search a trade, a town, or both.
39 trades, 6 families, 1,072 towns and 3,191 trade-and-town pages. Type any part of a name: "sparky", "man" or "cleaning lut" all find something.
Six families, 39 trades.
Companies House publishes SIC codes, not trades. The 39 groups here are ours, each a set of SIC codes a small business would recognise as its trade, gathered into six families. Property investment & letting is the largest single trade on the register, at 62,879 new companies over the last twelve months, 12% of everything counted here.
Management consultancy, Web & software development, IT consultancy, Advertising & design, Business support services, Architecture & engineering, Education & training, IT support, Estate agents, Accounting, Recruitment, Photography, Legal services Retail and food 127,519 8 trades · Last 12 months
Online retail, Takeaways, Restaurants & cafes, Hairdressing & beauty, Convenience stores, Catering & events, Pubs & bars, Wholesale Property 82,489 2 trades · Last 12 months
Property investment & letting, Property management Building and trades 75,611 4 trades · Last 12 months
Construction, Electricians, Plumbers & HVAC, Landscaping People and care 42,853 7 trades · Last 12 months
Health practitioners, Cleaning services, Care services, Fitness, Security services, Childcare, Veterinary Transport and logistics 36,013 5 trades · Last 12 months
Freight & couriers, Motor vehicle repair, Used car dealers, Taxi & private hire, Removals
Property investment & letting · Construction · Online retail · Management consultancy · Web & software development · Takeaways · Property management · Restaurants & cafes · Freight & couriers · Health practitioners · IT consultancy · Advertising & design · Hairdressing & beauty · Business support services · Cleaning services · Convenience stores · Education & training · Architecture & engineering · Catering & events · Motor vehicle repair · IT support · Used car dealers · Pubs & bars · Plumbers & HVAC · Wholesale · Electricians · Care services · Estate agents · Taxi & private hire · Accounting · Recruitment · Landscaping · Fitness · Security services · Photography · Legal services · Removals · Childcare · Veterinary
All 39 trades in one table, with the September count and the twelve-month running total for each.
The busiest towns.
New companies registered over the last twelve months, by the post town on the registered office address, or, where that office is a formation agent, by the town the company's directors run their other companies from.
London is counted as a single post town, so it is not really in the same contest as the rest of the list. It took 5.1 times as many new companies last year as Birmingham, more than the next eight towns put together. Leaving it in the ranking below would squash every other bar to a stub, so it sits up here on its own.
Ranked 2 to 9, without London
Bars scaled to Birmingham at 13,458, not to London
That is the top 9 of 1,072 towns, each of which has a page of its own with all 39 trades counted separately on it. See every town ranked, with a trade count for each.
Is the country really starting more businesses?
Partly. The register goes back over a century, and on it every one of these 39 trades looks like it is growing, which is the first sign that something other than growth is going on.
New companies in these 39 trades, so far this year
January to September 2026, against the same months of 2025
Older years undercount. The register only holds companies that still exist. Anything formed in an earlier year and since dissolved has dropped off it, so the further back the chart goes the more it undercounts. That alone makes every trade look like it is growing. Some of the rise here is real growth and some of it is simply that recent companies have had less time to close. On the yearly series 39 of the 39 trades show 2025 above 2015, which twenty-four separate industries do not do together. The long view takes it apart properly.
Where every number comes from.
One free public file: the Companies House bulk company data snapshot of 1 October 2026. Nothing on this site is modelled or estimated: every figure is a count of rows in it, and the awkward parts are written down rather than smoothed over.
The three things worth knowing before you quote any of it: the register only holds companies that still exist, so older years undercount; a company can carry four SIC codes and so land in more than one trade; and a registered office is very often a formation agent's mailbox rather than anywhere the company trades. The method in full, with the figures, and how to find newly registered companies yourself.
About 490 companies from August and September 2026 you can actually contact. From £15.
Every company registered in August and September 2026 is in the file, with name, number, registered address, directors and website where we found it. About 490 have a verified email: a mail server confirmed the mailbox and it is tied to the company's own website. Companies without a verified email come with up to two likely addresses, marked as not confirmed and not charged for.
Bought per trade, or as one file for a family of trades. National, the whole UK; filter by town in the file. Closed months only. 30p for each verified contact in September, £15 minimum; August comes free.
- Web & software development about 130 £15
- Construction about 90 £15
- IT consultancy about 60 £15
- Online retail about 40 £15
- Cleaning services about 20 £15
- Every trade, with its count and price
Exact record count, the price and a sample row by email, usually the same working day. Asking is not ordering.
Not ready to buy? The names alone, without contacts, are on the public register and we give them away: every new company in the 39 trades counted here in the last 30 days (26,827 to 14 October 2026), as a CSV per trade. Pick the trade.