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Industry benchmarks · SIC division 05

SIC 05 Mining of coal and lignite: UK company statistics (October 2026)

Data as of Source: Companies House register and iXBRL accountsBy
Short answer78 active companies list mining of coal and lignite as their main activity. Median net assets in their latest accounts are £1,000 (UK £3,113), and 21.8% report negative net assets (UK 18.8%).

Part of section B: Mining and quarrying.

Key figures compared with the UK

MeasureSIC 05All UKDifference
Active companies785,166,0570.0% of UK
Median company age (years)17.15.6205% higher
Incorporated in the last 3 years14.1%34.0%19.9 pts lower
Filing micro-entity accounts21.8%32.4%10.6 pts lower
Filing dormant accounts25.6%10.8%14.8 pts higher
Accounts overdue3.8%1.8%2.0 pts higher
Under a proposal to strike off10.5%7.4%3.1 pts higher
In liquidation, administration or receivership7.4%2.0%5.4 pts higher
With outstanding charges (secured lending)32.1%12.1%20.0 pts higher
Median net assets£1,000£3,11368% lower
Negative net assets21.8%18.8%3.0 pts higher
Net current liabilities34.9%36.2%close to UK
Median cash at bank£9,737£10kclose to UK
Cash covers creditors due within a year16.7%35.3%18.6 pts lower
Holding £100k or more in cash37.0%20.3%16.7 pts higher
Median employees (where stated)11close to UK

Balance sheet measures use each active company's most recent machine-readable (iXBRL) accounts with a period ending in 2024 or later: 58 companies here (74.4% of active). Net assets 25th to 75th percentile: £1 to £149k. Cash 25th to 75th percentile: £314 to £550k.

Share with negative net assets, 2014 to 2025

0%5%10%15%20%2014201620182020202220242025SIC 05All UK companies

Share of accounts with net liabilities (total liabilities larger than total assets) by financial year end, for companies on the live register. Dissolved companies are not included because the register no longer lists their industry, so earlier years show survivors. Negative net assets is a warning sign, not proof of insolvency: see what negative net assets means.

Accounts types filed

Type of last accountsShare hereShare UK
Dormant25.6%10.8%
Micro-entity21.8%32.4%
Total exemption full17.9%23.8%
Full (audited)9.0%1.5%
No accounts filed yet9.0%26.0%
Audit exemption subsidiary5.1%0.7%
Small3.8%1.2%
Group3.8%0.5%

The type shows how much a company has to disclose. Micro-entity and abridged accounts contain no profit and loss account on the public record. Read more about accounts categories and micro-entities.

Active companies by year of incorporation

20161
20172
20183
20194
20202
20211
20223
20234
20243
20255

Companies incorporated in each year that are still active today. Younger cohorts are larger partly because older ones have been dissolved.

Most common activity codes

SICActivityLive companies
05102Open cast coal working55
05101Deep coal mines28
05200Mining of lignite12

Methodology

Industry is the first SIC code each company declares on the Companies House register (snapshot 1 October 2026); the dormant placeholder 99999 is excluded. Status, accounts type and due dates come from the register. Financial measures come from our parse of 37 million iXBRL accounts filed since 2008; values above £100bn are treated as extraction errors. Companies filing paper or PDF accounts are not in the balance sheet figures. Full details: methodology.

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UK Company Data (2026). Mining of coal and lignite: UK company statistics. Global Mindset Marketing Ltd. https://data.globalmindsetmarketing.co.uk/industries/05-mining-of-coal-and-lignite

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