UK manufacturing companies in numbers (October 2026)
Key figures compared with the UK
| Measure | This sector | All UK | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active companies | 210,821 | 5,166,057 | 4.1% of UK |
| Median company age (years) | 7.5 | 5.6 | 34% higher |
| Incorporated in the last 3 years | 29.2% | 34.0% | 4.8 pts lower |
| Filing micro-entity accounts | 30.0% | 32.4% | close to UK |
| Filing dormant accounts | 10.8% | 10.8% | close to UK |
| Accounts overdue | 2.1% | 1.8% | 0.3 pts higher |
| Under a proposal to strike off | 7.7% | 7.4% | close to UK |
| In liquidation, administration or receivership | 2.7% | 2.0% | 0.7 pts higher |
| With outstanding charges (secured lending) | 16.1% | 12.1% | 4.0 pts higher |
| Median net assets | £8,638 | £3,113 | 177% higher |
| Negative net assets | 18.7% | 18.8% | close to UK |
| Net current liabilities | 33.4% | 36.2% | close to UK |
| Median cash at bank | £29k | £10k | 185% higher |
| Cash covers creditors due within a year | 30.8% | 35.3% | 4.5 pts lower |
| Holding £100k or more in cash | 33.4% | 20.3% | 13.1 pts higher |
| Median employees (where stated) | 2 | 1 | 100% higher |
Balance sheet measures use each active company's most recent machine-readable (iXBRL) accounts with a period ending in 2024 or later: 157,405 companies here (74.7% of active). Net assets 25th to 75th percentile: £1 to £126k. Cash 25th to 75th percentile: £2,012 to £184k.
What the numbers say
Manufacturers are more capital-heavy than the average UK company, and the numbers reflect it.
Median net assets are £8,638 and median cash is £28,863, both close to three times the UK medians, and a third of manufacturers (33.4%) hold £100k or more in cash, against 20.3%. Machinery, premises, stock and trade debtors all sit on the balance sheet, and a manufacturer typically needs a cash buffer to buy materials before customers pay. The median stated headcount is 2, against 1 for the UK.
The same assets support secured lending. 16.1% have outstanding charges against 12.1%, likely reflecting asset finance, invoice finance and bank debt secured on plant and property. The flip side is a higher insolvency rate: 2.7% of live manufacturers are in liquidation, administration or receivership, against 2.0%. Fixed costs, energy prices and long supply chains leave less room when orders fall. Before buying from or selling to a manufacturer on credit, follow how to check a UK company.
The sector is older than average: 42% of companies are more than 10 years old (32.1% for the UK). Divisions vary a lot. Machinery and fabricated metal producers have median net assets above £50,000, while 36.4% of beverage makers report negative net assets.
Negative net assets overall (18.7%) are in line with the UK (18.8%), and the trend has tracked the national figure: 16.3% for financial years ending in 2014 and 18.6% in 2025, the same as the UK in 2025. A negative balance sheet is a warning sign, not proof of insolvency; see negative net assets.
The largest code is 32990 other manufacturing n.e.c. (18,157 live companies), and new incorporations jumped: 23,276 of today's active manufacturers were formed in 2025, against 14,653 in 2024. Compare with wholesale and retail, or test a company's figures in the balance sheet ratio calculator.
Share with negative net assets, 2014 to 2025
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 accounts | Share here | Share UK |
|---|---|---|
| Micro-entity | 30.0% | 32.4% |
| Total exemption full | 27.8% | 23.8% |
| No accounts filed yet | 19.9% | 26.0% |
| Dormant | 10.8% | 10.8% |
| Unaudited abridged | 3.7% | 2.9% |
| Full (audited) | 3.5% | 1.5% |
| Small | 2.3% | 1.2% |
| Group | 0.7% | 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
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
| SIC | Activity | Live companies |
|---|---|---|
| 32990 | Other manufacturing n.e.c. | 18,157 |
| 18129 | Printing n.e.c. | 9,182 |
| 16230 | Manufacture of other builders' carpentry and joinery | 8,813 |
| 25990 | Manufacture of other fabricated metal products n.e.c. | 8,168 |
| 33190 | Repair of other equipment | 6,554 |
| 10890 | Manufacture of other food products n.e.c. | 6,018 |
| 10710 | Manufacture of bread | 5,739 |
| 31090 | Manufacture of other furniture | 5,712 |
Divisions in this section
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.
Download and cite
Download these figures as CSV. Licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse freely with a link to this page.
Check a specific company in this sector with our free company search, or query these statistics from code and AI assistants through the API and MCP server (tool market_stats).