Business formation data for local authorities
Where can a council get up-to-date data on new business formation in its area? Official business-demography statistics arrive a year or more after the fact. Salenovo's Formation Index shows every council's new company formations week by week — 41 in Chelmsford last week, 14,543 nationally — with the sector mix, the share expected to trade, how many were formed at mass-formation addresses rather than locally, and new food premises. Free to use, with attribution.
What you get
Weekly, not annual
The ONS business-demography release is authoritative and a year late. This is the same underlying register, counted weekly, so you see a change in the quarter it happens.
Real formations, not paper ones
Counts of incorporations by registered office flatter areas with formation agents (Camden, Hackney, Islington) and hide what is really happening locally. We show the agent share and the expected-to-trade figure alongside the raw count.
What is being started
Sector mix, rising sectors against the previous quarter, and new food premises from your own register.
Compare and share
Every council against its region and the UK, on any measure, with a link you can put in a committee paper. A quarterly report for each council is on the way.
What it replaces
Waiting fifteen months for business-demography statistics, or an officer spending a day a month in Companies House search. The Formation Index is free to use and cite with attribution; a licensed feed or a branded dashboard for an economic-development team is quoted on request.
A worked example: Chelmsford
Chelmsford: 41 incorporated last week, 16 expected to trade, 0% at agent or virtual-office addresses, 1 food premises in the last 8 weeks. See the Chelmsford page, see a real week's list, or compare any area.
Against what you do today
| Raw register dump | Companies House by hand | Salenovo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source | ONS Business Demography (annual, ~15 months' lag) | Companies House search, by hand | Companies House register, counted weekly by council |
| Detail | Births, deaths, survival by district | Whatever you extract | Weekly counts, sector mix, expected-to-trade, agent share, premises |
| Cost | Free | Officer time | Free, with attribution; licensed feed and branded dashboard available |
Business-to-business email to a limited company or LLP is permitted under PECR without prior consent, provided you say who you are and offer an opt-out. Every row says where the address came from. No director names, no home addresses.
How to use it
- Open your council's page: this week's incorporations, the year-earlier comparison, sector mix, agent share and expected-to-trade.
- Use the explorer to compare your council with neighbours, the region and the UK, indexed to 100 for a fair comparison; every view has a link for a committee paper.
- Download the JSON for your council and drop it into your own dashboard; the data files are free with attribution to Salenovo and Companies House.
- Ask for the quarterly formation report for your council, or a briefing on what the numbers mean for your area.
- Tell us what you need that is missing — dissolutions, survival by sector, ward-level counts are on the list.
Two short messages that work — an email and a letter, with the one line that matters for your trade — are on the templates page.
Questions
How do these figures compare with ONS business demography?
ONS counts business births from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (VAT and PAYE registrations), so it counts businesses that reach a threshold and excludes the many companies that never trade. Salenovo counts incorporations on the Companies House register and estimates how many will trade. The two are complementary: ours is early and comprehensive, ONS is authoritative and late.
Why does my area's count differ from a Companies House search by postcode?
Companies House search returns companies by registered office postcode, including those at formation agents and accountants. We map the same postcodes to your council boundary using the ONS Postcode Directory and show the agent share separately.
Can we embed or reuse the data?
Yes. The pages and the JSON data files are free to use with attribution to Salenovo and Companies House (Open Government Licence). A licensed feed and a branded dashboard for economic-development teams are available.
Method and accuracy — how the numbers are made: incorporations from the Companies House public register, mapped to councils with the ONS Postcode Directory; "expected to trade" from the historical outcomes of 447,000 companies formed in 2022 and 2024, by formation address and sector; websites verified by fetching the company's name-matching domain and checking it against the company; food premises from the Food Standards Agency's register. All Open Government Licence. Every row in the paid list carries its source and date.
Other uses: Accountants & bookkeepers · Insurance brokers · Web, design & marketing agencies · Hospitality & food-service suppliers · Lenders, brokers & fintech · Commercial property & serviced offices · B2B suppliers: telecoms, payroll, EPOS, merchant services · Business owners