Spotlight
UK business; activity, size and location: 2021
What's in the bulletin?
- The number of Value Added Tax (VAT) and/or Pay As You Earn (PAYE) businesses in the UK as of March 2021 was 2.77 million, an increase of 0.6% from March 2020.
- The number of companies and public corporations has continued to rise and represents 74.3% of total UK businesses, while the proportion of sole proprietors and partnerships has fallen to 22.1%.
- The largest industry group is still professional, scientific, and technical, making up 16.4% of all registered businesses in the UK; this is down 0.6 percentage points from March last year.
Business demography, quarterly experimental statistics, UK: January to March 2022
What's in the bulletin?
- The number of businesses removed from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) (business closures) in the UK in Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2022 was 23% higher than in Quarter 1 2021.
- There was an increase in closures in 15 out of 16 main industrial groups in Quarter 1 2022 compared with Quarter 1 2021, with the most significant increase coming from the transport and storage industry.
- The number of businesses added to the IDBR (business creations) in the UK in Quarter 1 2022 was at the same level as the number added in Quarter 1 2021.
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Datasets related to Activity, size and location
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Business demography, quarterly experimental statistics, UK
Business births and deaths from the Inter-Departmental Business Register with high-level breakdowns by industry and region. Quarterly Experimental Statistics.
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UK business: activity, size and location
The data contained in these tables are numbers of enterprises and local units produced from a snapshot of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 12 March 2021. The publication contains tables on local units and enterprises by geography, industry, legal status and employment size band. Additional tables at enterprise level provide information by turnover size band.
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Business demography, UK
Annual data on births, deaths and survivals of businesses in the UK, by geographical area and Standard Industrial Classification 2007: SIC 2007 groups.
Publications related to Activity, size and location
Statistical bulletins
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Business demography, quarterly experimental statistics, UK: January to March 2022
Business births and deaths from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) with high-level breakdowns by industry and region. Quarterly Experimental Statistics.
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UK business; activity, size and location: 2021
UK businesses broken down by legal status, industry, region, employment and turnover size bands.
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Business demography, UK: 2020
Change in the number of UK businesses broken down by district and industry.
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Methodology related to Activity, size and location
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