Online retail leads the family.
The 8 trades grouped into retail and food, busiest first. Online retail took 42,359 of the 128,027 counted here over the last twelve months, 33% of the family on its own. Each trade opens on its own page, broken down town by town.
| Trade | Aug 2026 | Last 12 months | Relative twelve-month volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online retail | 4,043 | 42,359 | |
| Takeaways | 1,425 | 19,602 | |
| Restaurants & cafes | 1,403 | 18,439 | |
| Hairdressing & beauty | 944 | 13,171 | |
| Convenience stores | 950 | 12,267 | |
| Catering & events | 836 | 10,327 | |
| Pubs & bars | 487 | 6,305 | |
| Wholesale | 466 | 5,557 | |
| Retail and food, all 8 trades | 10,554 | 128,027 |
The families are ours, not the register's: they exist so the colour on every chart means something. A company carrying more than one SIC code can land in more than one trade, so the rows above can count the same company twice and the family total is a total of the rows rather than a headcount of companies. The grouping is set out in full on the method page, SIC code by SIC code.
July was the busiest month.
New retail and food companies registered across the UK each month. The busiest month was July on 12,275. The quietest was December on 7,858.
New retail and food companies in the UK, by month
Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · 128,027 in total
Registrations dip over Christmas and pick up in the new year in almost every trade, so compare a month with the same month a year earlier rather than with the one before it.
How far back it goes.
Retail and food companies still on the register, by year of incorporation, and the like-for-like comparison underneath: the first 8 months of 2026 against the same 8 months of 2025.
New retail and food companies in the UK, by year
2015 to 2026 · 2026 counts January to August only
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. The long view of UK company formation takes the same problem apart across all 39 trades.
| Trade | Change | Jan–Aug 2025 | Jan–Aug 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online retail | Up 30% | 22,512 | 29,194 |
| Wholesale | Up 9% | 3,416 | 3,707 |
| Restaurants & cafes | Up 8% | 11,593 | 12,556 |
| Takeaways | Up 7% | 12,481 | 13,343 |
| Hairdressing & beauty | Up 7% | 8,393 | 9,002 |
| Catering & events | Up 7% | 6,770 | 7,223 |
| Convenience stores | Up 4% | 7,835 | 8,167 |
| Pubs & bars | Up 1% | 4,321 | 4,384 |
8 of the 8 trades in this family registered more companies in the first 8 months of 2026 than in the same months of 2025; 0 registered fewer. Online retail moved most on the way up, at 30%.
Where retail and food firms are starting.
New retail and food 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 4.0 times as many new retail and food companies last year as Birmingham. 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 16, without London
Bars scaled to Birmingham at 4,381, not to London
Each town above links to its busiest retail and food trade there where that pairing has enough volume for a page, and to the town itself where it does not. Every town counted, ranked and linked.
The rest of the register.
39,886 new companies were counted across all 39 trades in August 2026, 10,554 of them in this family. Here is where the other 29,332 landed.
Management consultancy, Web & software development, IT consultancy, Advertising & design, Business support services, Architecture & engineering, Education & training, IT support, Accounting, Estate agents, Recruitment, Photography, Legal services Property 84,970 2 trades · Last 12 months
Property investment & letting, Property management Building and trades 76,467 4 trades · Last 12 months
Construction, Electricians, Plumbers & HVAC, Landscaping People and care 43,520 7 trades · Last 12 months
Health practitioners, Cleaning services, Care services, Fitness, Security services, Childcare, Veterinary Transport and logistics 36,231 5 trades · Last 12 months
Freight & couriers, Motor vehicle repair, Used car dealers, Taxi & private hire, Removals
All 39 trades in one table · The long view · How the counts are made
140 companies from August 2026 in retail and food you can actually contact. From £15.
Every record carries the company's name, number, registered address, directors, website and an email address we checked as deliverable and tied to that company. Companies we could not verify are left out, not padded in, and you are not charged for them.
Bought per trade or as one retail and food file. National, the whole UK; filter by town in the file. Closed months only, so the count you see is the count you get. £0.30 a record, £15 minimum.
- Online retail about 80 £25.20
- Catering & events about 20 £15
- Takeaways about 10 £15
- Restaurants & cafes about 10 £15
- Hairdressing & beauty about 10 £15
- Convenience stores under 10
- 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 UK in the last 30 days (25,200 to 25 September 2026), as a CSV per trade. Pick the trade.