Limited Companies

The Top 10 Most Entrepreneurial Places In The UK

Luke Fletcher

Luke spent a decade at two of the UK’s largest accounting firms delivering tax advice to household names. Frustrated by the lack of tax advice offered to small businesses, and the 'once a year' compliance led approach from most traditional accountants Luke set up Raw. Using his experience, Luke now helps owner managed and entrepreneurial businesses take back control of their finances through simple, jargon-free advice. As an ICAEW Chartered Accountant and tax advisor, Luke loves nothing more than helping his clients pay less tax and maximise their earnings. Commercially minded and pragmatic, Luke prides himself on building long lasting, trusted client relationships.

March 30, 2022

We’ve been crunching the numbers available from Companies House to take a look at the cities where the most private limited companies have been incorporated over the last 2 years.

As the capital city, it’s unsurprising that London is so far ahead in the league table, but the overall top 10 is an interesting mix with a closely fought battle between some surprising local cities.

City	Private Limited Companies Incorporated 2020/21
1. London	323,407
2. Manchester	27,060
3. Birmingham	26,394
4. Glasgow	16,551
5. Leeds	13,865
6. Liverpool	12,737
7. Bristol	12,539
8. Leicester	12,036
9. Nottingham	10,667
10. Sheffield	8,505

Data finds a 29.26% increase in new businesses between 2020 and 2021

In the UK between the years 2020 and 2021, there was an increase in the number of Private Limited Companies founded by 29.26%.

Companies House data analysed by Raw Accounting found there to be 561,924 Private Limited Companies founded in 2020, and 726,334 in 2021.

Growth looks to be slowing in 2022…

We also looked into how 2022 has got on so far, however this growth seems to have slowed down slightly.

When looking at the amount of Private Limited Companies incorporated in January and February 2022 we can see a slight increase in January, but overall it remains fairly flat.

Methodology

Data was collected and analysed from http://download.companieshouse.gov.uk/en_output.html using incorporation date and company category. Using BasicCompanyData-2022-03-01 files that were last updated on the 01/03/22.