Where new UK companies registered in Q2 2026: the top towns and cities
London took 54,077 of the 193,829 companies incorporated in the UK in the second quarter of 2026. Exact registration counts for 39 towns and cities, with year-on-year change.
London took 54,077 new company registrations in the second quarter of 2026 — 27.9% of the 193,829 companies incorporated across the UK in the quarter. Manchester was next with 5,311.
This report counts registrations for 39 UK towns and cities, one exact register query each, and compares them with Q2 2025. It measures where companies are registered, which is not always where they trade — a distinction we set out in the methodology. The full dataset is downloadable.
Key findings
- 193,829 companies were incorporated UK-wide in Q2 2026, down 8.5% on Q2 2025.
- London accounted for 27.9% of all UK registrations.
- Outside London, Manchester led with 5,311 registrations, ahead of Birmingham on 4,431.
- Cardiff grew fastest, +21.0% year on year to 771 registrations.
- Belfast fell furthest, −27.0% to 755.
Registrations by town and city
| # | Town or city | Region | Companies (Q2 2026) | Share of UK total | vs Q2 2025 | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | London | London | 54,077 | 27.90% | +5.5% | View |
| 2 | Manchester | North West | 5,311 | 2.74% | −11.6% | View |
| 3 | Birmingham | West Midlands | 4,431 | 2.29% | −9.1% | View |
| 4 | Glasgow | Scotland | 2,847 | 1.47% | −12.2% | View |
| 5 | Liverpool | North West | 2,111 | 1.09% | −8.6% | View |
| 6 | Leeds | Yorkshire & the Humber | 1,877 | 0.97% | −9.6% | View |
| 7 | Leicester | East Midlands | 1,836 | 0.95% | −12.5% | View |
| 8 | Bristol | South West | 1,716 | 0.89% | −15.8% | View |
| 9 | Edinburgh | Scotland | 1,694 | 0.87% | +0.2% | View |
| 10 | Nottingham | East Midlands | 1,649 | 0.85% | −13.3% | View |
| 11 | Coventry | West Midlands | 1,436 | 0.74% | −12.5% | View |
| 12 | Sheffield | Yorkshire & the Humber | 1,331 | 0.69% | −19.2% | View |
| 13 | Bradford | Yorkshire & the Humber | 1,312 | 0.68% | −8.6% | View |
| 14 | Wolverhampton | West Midlands | 1,125 | 0.58% | +12.6% | View |
| 15 | Luton | East of England | 1,027 | 0.53% | −4.8% | View |
| 16 | Derby | East Midlands | 1,016 | 0.52% | −9.9% | View |
| 17 | Preston | North West | 900 | 0.46% | −6.3% | View |
| 18 | Milton Keynes | South East | 899 | 0.46% | −7.9% | View |
| 19 | Cambridge | East of England | 893 | 0.46% | −16.0% | View |
| 20 | Newcastle upon Tyne | North East | 883 | 0.46% | −9.5% | View |
A registered office is a legal correspondence address, not a place of business. Accountants and company formation agents register clients at their own addresses, which pulls counts towards city centres — and towards London above all. Read this table as where companies are registered, and treat it as a proxy for local business activity only with that in mind.
Cardiff is corrected. Companies House relocates a company's registered office to its own default address — a Cardiff postcode — when the address is disputed or removed under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. That put 1,043 companies into Cardiff's raw Q2 2026 count, against 8,842 in Q2 2025. Those companies are not Cardiff businesses, so they are subtracted here. Uncorrected, Cardiff's raw count would read 1,814 and its year-on-year movement would be an artefact of enforcement activity rather than anything to do with the Welsh economy.
What changed against Q2 2025
Percentage changes are shown only for places with at least 300 registrations in Q2 2026.
The quarter month by month
| Month | UK incorporations |
|---|---|
| Apr | 67,637 |
| May | 62,569 |
| Jun | 63,623 |
How to act on this data
Each location below opens a live, pre-filtered list of the active companies registered there in the last 12 months — updated from the register, not frozen at this report's publication date.
| Location | New companies (Q2 2026) | Year on year | See the companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 54,077 | +5.5% | Build the London list |
| Manchester | 5,311 | −11.6% | Build the Manchester list |
| Birmingham | 4,431 | −9.1% | Build the Birmingham list |
| Glasgow | 2,847 | −12.2% | Build the Glasgow list |
| Liverpool | 2,111 | −8.6% | Build the Liverpool list |
| Leeds | 1,877 | −9.6% | Build the Leeds list |
| Leicester | 1,836 | −12.5% | Build the Leicester list |
| Bristol | 1,716 | −15.8% | Build the Bristol list |
For territory planning, the useful comparison is not raw volume but volume against your current coverage: a city with a third of London's registrations and none of your competitors is a better market than one with more companies and a crowded field. Free new-company alerts will send new registrations in a location each week.
Methodology
Where the figures come from. Each city figure is an exact hit count from the Companies House advanced company search API, filtered on registered-office location and incorporation date, taken on 2026-10-08 for companies incorporated between 2026-04-01 and 2026-06-30 inclusive.
Which places are measured. 39 UK towns and cities were counted, each with its own exact query. This is a census of a defined list rather than a ranking of every settlement in the UK: a town outside the list cannot appear, however fast it is growing.
The Companies House default address. Companies House moves a company's registered office to its own default address — a Cardiff postcode — when the original address is disputed, used without permission or removed under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. Those companies are not Cardiff businesses, and there are enough of them to dominate the city's raw count. This study measures the default address directly and subtracts it from Cardiff: 1,043 companies in Q2 2026, against 8,842 in Q2 2025. Cardiff figures here are the corrected ones.
What a location match means. Companies House has no city field. The location filter matches the registered-office address text, so a count includes addresses that contain the place name and excludes surrounding areas that do not. Neighbouring boroughs and postal towns are not aggregated into their nearest city.
Limitations.
- Cardiff counts are corrected for the Companies House default address, which is a Cardiff postcode used for companies whose registered office has been removed. Uncorrected Cardiff figures overstate the city, and their year-on-year movement is meaningless.
- A registered office is a legal correspondence address, not a place of business. Companies frequently register at an accountant's or formation agent's address, which concentrates registrations in city centres and in London in particular.
- Place counts come from a free-text address match, so they cannot be treated as local-authority statistics.
- These are registrations, not trading businesses, and counts move slightly as late registrations are processed.
Data and licence
- Period covered: 2026-04-01 to 2026-06-30 (inclusive).
- Source: Companies House register (advanced company search API).
- Retrieved: 2026-10-08.
- Licence: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Company data © Crown copyright.
- Download: where-uk-companies-register-q2-2026.csv.
Citation. CompaniesIQ Research (2026). Where new UK companies registered in Q2 2026: the top towns and cities. Available at: https://www.companiesiq.co.uk/blog/where-uk-companies-register-q2-2026
Frequently asked questions
Which UK city had the most new company registrations in Q2 2026?
London, with 54,077 companies incorporated between 2026-04-01 and 2026-06-30 — 27.9% of all UK registrations in the quarter. Manchester was second with 5,311.
Does this show where businesses actually operate?
Not exactly. It shows where companies give their registered office, which is a legal correspondence address. Accountants and formation agents register clients at their own addresses, so city-centre and London counts are inflated relative to real trading activity.
Why isn't my town listed?
The study counts a fixed list of 39 UK towns and cities, each with its own exact query. Places outside that list are not measured, so their absence says nothing about their activity.
Can I reuse these figures?
Yes. The underlying data is Companies House public data under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Please attribute CompaniesIQ Research and link to this page.
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