Notice

12 May 2017

The ONS closed its Data Explorer (beta) service on 12 May 2017. This blog provides details surrounding the closure. A replacement service is under development and is at an early Alpha stage and will ultimately become the platform for UK Business, Size Activity and Location open data. In the interim, please access the data via NOMIS for more detail and analysis. You will need to choose the query data option and then choose UK Business counts from the list.

Metadata associated with this content:

An enterprise is a statistical unit, defined as the smallest group of legal units (generally based on VAT or PAYE) within an enterprise group (where one exists) that have a certain degree of autonomy or control. An enterprise is essentially a business. It is generally located at the main operating site or the head office. For small businesses the head office and the operations often will be at the same address. For larger businesses, for example a supermarket chain with several hundred shops across the UK, the head office is likely to be in London or another large city and the operational units (local units or sites) will be at numerous addresses throughout the country.

A local unit is a statistical unit in an enterprise, defined as the individual site (shop, factory, etc) situated in a geographically identified place. At a local unit, economic activity is carried out by one or more persons (even if only part-time) working for one and the same enterprise.

The Standard Industrial Classification (UK SIC 2007) is a hierarchical classification system grouping business establishments and other statistical units by the type of economic activity in which they are engaged.

Units are classed into size bands by employment information taken from the IDBR, drawn mainly from the Business Register Survey (BRS). Because this is based on a sample of enterprises, estimates from previous returns and from other ONS surveys have also been used. For the smallest units, either PAYE jobs or employment imputed from VAT turnover is used.

The legal status of units is classified in accordance with National Accounts Sector Classifications in conjunction with information received from Companies House and the administrative sources - Value Added Tax (VAT) and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) schemes - from HM Revenue & Customs.

In 2015, we extended the coverage of businesses in the release to include a population of solely PAYE based businesses that were previously excluded because of a risk of duplication. In total 105,000 businesses were added in 2015. Improvements in matching of administrative data and research into those units excluded has indicated that the risk of duplication is very small. The addition of these businesses brings the publication in line with Business Demography and the BEIS Business Population Estimates, which both include these businesses. A more detailed note has been written explaining these changes.

For BAA01b, BAD01 and BAF01, 2015 data is based on 2001 Census boundaries and 2016 data is based on 2011 Census boundaries.

Datasets are ordered chronologically then alphabetically. For 2016, please use datasets UKBAA01a to UKBAI. For 2015, please use UKBAA02 to UKBAF02. For 2014, please use UKBA01a to UKBI.

  • This is an accredited National Statistic. Click for information about types of official statistics.
    Contact:
  • Release date:
    27 September 2023
  • Next release:
    To be announced

About this Dataset

Numbers of enterprises and local units produced from a snapshot of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 10 March 2023.

Edition in this dataset

2023 edition of this dataset

2022 edition of this dataset

2021 edition of this dataset

2020 edition of this dataset

2019 edition of this dataset

2018 edition of this dataset

Previous versions of this data are available.

2017 edition of this dataset

UKBAA01a-Enterprise/local units by 4 Digit SIC and UK Regions edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAA01b-Enterprise/local units by Broad Industry Group and UK Local Authority Districts (including UK total) edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAA01b-Enterprise/local units by Broad Industry Group and UK Local Authority Districts (including UK total): 2015 data edition of this dataset

UKBAA03-Enterprise/local units by Industry and Parliamentary Constituency edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBABa-Enterprise/local units by 2 Digit SIC, Employment size band and Region edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBABb-Enterprise/local units by 4 Digit SIC and Employment size band edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAC-Enterprise/local units by Industry, Employment size band and Legal status edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAD01-Enterprise/local units by Employment size band and UK Local Authority Districts (including UK total) edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAD01-Enterprise/local units by Employment size band and UK Local Authority Districts (including UK total): 2015 data edition of this dataset

UKBAD03-Enterprise/local units by Employment size band and Parliamentary Constituency edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAE-Enterprise/local units by Employment size band, Legal status and Region edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAF01-Enterprise by Turnover size band and UK Local Authority Districts (including UK total) edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAF01-Enterprise by Turnover size band and UK Local Authority Districts (including UK total): 2015 data edition of this dataset

UKBAF03-Enterprise by Turnover size band and Parliamentary Constituency edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAGa-Enterprise by 2 Digit SIC, Turnover size band and Region edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAGb-Enterprise by 4 Digit SIC and Turnover size band edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAH-Enterprise by Turnover size band, Legal status and Region edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAI-Enterprise by Industry, Turnover size band and Legal status edition of this dataset 2016 data

UKBAA02-Enterprise/local units by Industry and Northern Ireland Local Authority Districts edition of this dataset 2015 data

UKBAD02-Enterprise/local units by Employment size band and Northern Ireland Local Authority Districts edition of this dataset 2015 data

UKBAF02-Enterprise by Turnover size band and Northern Ireland Local Authority Districts edition of this dataset 2015 data

UKBA01a - Enterprise/local units by 4 Digit SIC and UK Regions edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBA01b - Enterprise/local units by Broad Industry Group and GB Local Authority Districts (including UK total) edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBA02 - Enterprise/local units by Industry and Northern Ireland Local Authority Districts edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBA03 - Enterprise/local units by Industry and Parliamentary Constituency edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBBa - Enterprise/local units by 2 Digit SIC, Employment size band and Region  edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBBb - Enterprise/local units by 4 Digit SIC and Employment size band edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBC - Enterprise/local units by Industry, Employment size band and Legal status edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBD01 - Enterprise/local units by Employment size band and GB Local Authority Districts (including UK total) edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBD02 - Enterprise/local units by Employment size band and Northern Ireland Local Authority Districts edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBD03 - Enterprise/local units by Employment size band and Parliamentary Constituency edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBE - Enterprise/local units by Employment size band, Legal status and Region edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBF01 - Enterprise by Turnover size band and GB Local Authority Districts (including UK total) edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBF02 - Enterprise by Turnover size band and Northern Ireland Local Authority Districts edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBF03 - Enterprise by Turnover size band and Parliamentary Constituency edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBGa - Enterprise by 2 Digit SIC, Turnover size band and Region edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBGb - Enterprise by 4 Digit SIC and Turnover size band edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBH - Enterprise by Turnover size band, Legal status and Region edition of this dataset 2014 data

UKBI - Enterprise by Industry, Turnover size band and Legal status edition of this dataset 2014 data

Contact details for this dataset

Becky Shaw
idbrdas@ons.gov.uk
+44 1633 456902

Publications that use this data