We analyzed data from UK Companies House as at 31.03.23 and found some interesting insights.
There are a lot of relatively new companies in the UK
There are approximately 5,067,388 active companies filed in the UK companies house database. 35% of these companies are 2 years old or less with 14% of active UK companies (717,304) filed in the last year. 9,618 active companies are older than 87 years and there are 6 active companies filed way back in 1856, the year that the Joint Stock Companies Act was born. However, this doesn’t mean that all other companies filed in 1856 have died because they may have merged or been acquired by other companies.
Jurisdiction of UK companies
92% of these companies are in England-Wales while 5.5% are in Scotland and 1.5% are in Northern Ireland.
Company officers
There are 9,217,269 positions registered with Companies House. We assume an officer occupies more than one position if the individual has the same nationality, date of birth, and name. However, some individuals have not completed these fields. According to this criteria, there are 6,278,145 active individual officers. Please note that this data is only an assumption based on the criteria we set out.
Of these positions, 85% are directors and 11% are secretaries. 66% of these officers are British while 12% are not specified. 53% of companies have only 1 officer while 28% have 2.
80% officers are only affiliated with 1 company while 12% are affiliated with 2 companies.
Company directors
There are 7,880,721 active director positions and 5,370,080 active individual directors. 75% of directors are British while 3% are English.
64% of companies have 1 director while 25% have 2 directors.
79% of directors are only affiliated with 1 company while 13% are affiliated with 2 companies.
