Companies in the UK ranked by number of employees

How this list was made

Industry

All industries: every company on the UK register, whatever its SIC code.

Location

The whole UK: every company on the register, wherever its registered office is.

Periods compared

Each company's latest annual accounts. The previous year's figure is shown for context and does not affect the ranking.

Ranking

Ranked by the average number of employees in the latest filed accounts. Companies with fewer than 10 employees are left out.

Exclusions

Companies that are dissolved, in liquidation, in administration or proposed to be struck off; dormant companies; and companies whose latest accounts end more than 21 months before the newest accounts in the data (or are dated after it). Figures that cannot be right, which are most likely filing errors, are also left out:

• an employee number identical to the net assets figure, or above 100,000
• more employees than the company's accounts category allows (micro: 50, small: 250, with a margin)
• less than £5,000 of turnover per employee, or a round number of thousands with no turnover to check it against

Companies checked

Companies registered in the UK6,680,268

Not active−1,123,774

Dormant−517,226

Latest accounts too old or wrongly dated−2,978,059

Average employees not filed in the latest accounts−669,524

Average employees below 10−1,267,677

Figure too large or inconsistent to be reliable−1,056

Qualified for this list122,952