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The UK Business Landscape in numbers
Computed from 2,975,315 UK businesses in our open-data directory · July 2026 edition. Every number on this page is reproducible and free to cite with attribution.
Headline figures
The United Kingdom has 2,975,315 listed businesses in this dataset. 89% publish a phone number and 82.7% have a website — meaning roughly one in 6 UK businesses still has no web presence at all.
The 15 biggest business cities
| # | City | Businesses | % with website |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | London | 242,378 | 85.5% |
| 2 | Manchester | 42,771 | 81% |
| 3 | Glasgow | 40,517 | 82% |
| 4 | Birmingham | 39,348 | 82.7% |
| 5 | Bristol | 32,447 | 84.6% |
| 6 | Leeds | 28,240 | 83.9% |
| 7 | Nottingham | 28,056 | 79.2% |
| 8 | Liverpool | 25,756 | 81.4% |
| 9 | Edinburgh | 25,272 | 86.1% |
| 10 | Sheffield | 23,962 | 82.7% |
| 11 | Leicester | 19,983 | 82.1% |
| 12 | Southampton | 16,250 | 80.7% |
| 13 | Belfast | 16,180 | 82.7% |
| 14 | Cardiff | 16,031 | 84% |
| 15 | Newcastle upon Tyne | 15,566 | 82.1% |
Most common business types
| # | Category | Businesses |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Personal Or Beauty Service | 138,381 |
| 2 | Home Service | 133,889 |
| 3 | Hardware Home And Garden Store | 123,100 |
| 4 | Restaurant | 120,913 |
| 5 | Professional Service | 99,344 |
| 6 | Bar | 78,460 |
| 7 | Fashion And Apparel Store | 78,014 |
| 8 | Automotive Service | 69,871 |
| 9 | Food And Beverage Store | 56,414 |
| 10 | Christian Place Of Worship | 53,063 |
| 11 | Financial Service | 52,180 |
| 12 | Real Estate Service | 49,508 |
| 13 | Convenience Store | 39,016 |
| 14 | Hotel | 33,482 |
| 15 | Casual Eatery | 33,051 |
Densest postcode districts
Britain's biggest chains by location count
| # | Chain | Locations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | InPost | 13,646 |
| 2 | Costa Express | 13,439 |
| 3 | Evri ParcelShop | 8,516 |
| 4 | Post Office Travel Money | 4,692 |
| 5 | Western Union | 4,570 |
| 6 | Post Office | 4,436 |
| 7 | Costa Coffee | 4,010 |
| 8 | Co-op Food | 3,407 |
| 9 | Premier | 3,326 |
| 10 | Timpson | 3,083 |
| 11 | Subway | 2,905 |
| 12 | William Hill | 2,673 |
| 13 | Yeep | 2,536 |
| 14 | Londis | 2,227 |
| 15 | Ladbrokes | 2,221 |
Most online big cities (share of businesses with a website, ≥5,000 businesses)
- Cambridge — 86.5% (11,407 businesses)
- Watford — 86.4% (6,391 businesses)
- Edinburgh — 86.1% (25,272 businesses)
- St Albans — 85.9% (5,132 businesses)
- Basingstoke — 85.7% (5,004 businesses)
Methodology & reuse
Figures are aggregated from openly licensed Overture Maps Foundation place data (July 2026 snapshot) as compiled by business.wiki; counting rules are documented on the methodology page. Journalists and researchers may reuse any figure with attribution — cite as: “business.wiki, UK Business Landscape (July 2026)”. For per-city or per-category detail, every city, category and postcode district links to a live page.