Database of Companies in the UK: Top Industries and Biggest Players

The majority of companies doing business in the United Kingdom have a legal form of corporations (65.1%) and proprietorships (12.8%).

43.8% of all UK-based corporations and 42.5% of proprietorships operate in services. In the case of corporations, the second most represented industry is finance, insurance, and real estate (17.6%) with retail (12.5%) in the third place. Among proprietorships, retail is second (23.8%), and construction is third (11.1%).

The most represented SIC Code among corporations is business services (398,000), followed by sub-divider/developer (253,000), and management consulting services (204,000). In the case of proprietorships, eating places are first (66,000), followed by beauty shops (46,000) and general auto repair (30,000).

Majority of UK-based companies operate in services (41.3%), retail (14.2%), and finance, insurance, and real estate (12.6%). According to our latest records (as of May 2022), more than half of sales are generated by finance, insurance, and real estate (EUR 6.9B, which represents 41.85% of sales generated by all UK-based companies per year) and services (EUR 3.8B, which represents 23.25% of sales generated by all UK-based companies per year).

London remains to be the UK's financial capital, responsible for 69.1% (EUR 4.8B) of the total annual sales in the finance, insurance, and real estate industry. This can be explained by the fact that the world's top financial businesses are headquartered in the capital city. The list includes companies like Industrial And Commercial Bank Of China Limited, Bank Of China Limited, JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association, Bank Of America, National Association, and HSBC Holdings PLC. Here it needs to be noted that these sales numbers could be skewed - banks’ and other financial institutions' sales numbers could include not only actual revenues brought in by, for example, interest on mortgages but also mortgages themselves (the amount actually borrowed from a bank). The top 100 companies in this industry account for 51.7% of sales in the entire UK economy.

38% of all companies operating in the UK do business in the top 10 SIC Codes. Most of the UK business operate under business services (5.92%) and eating places (4.15%) SIC Codes.

Almost one-sixth of companies are based in London. London is home to 16.4% of all UK companies, followed by Manchester (1.7%) and Birmingham (1.6%). Overall, 26.85% of all businesses are registered in the following 10 cities.

According to our latest records (as of May 2022), the top performing company in the United Kingdom in terms of sales is Royal Dutch Shell PLC with EUR 161.2B per year, followed by BP PLC (EUR 161.1B). The top 15 largest companies have total annual sales of EUR 1.4T, which represents 20.8% of sales generated by all companies in the United Kingdom.

G4S Limited, a private security service, is the UK's largest employer with 551,748 employees. Tesco PLC is second with more than 367,000 employees, followed by HSBC Holdings PLC with 239,000 employees. UK's 15 largest companies employ 4.4% of all employees in the United Kingdom.