The fastest growing UK industries, and how to tell real growth from noise
Business admin and support services added new firms faster than any other UK trade in the most recent quarter, at 12.3% growth. But a fast quarter and a growing market are not the same thing. Here is how to tell them apart.
Watch: Two numbers, never one
Everybody wants to sell into a growing market. Very few people check whether the market they picked is actually growing.
The check is free and takes about ten minutes. The ONS publishes how many businesses open and close in each main trade, every quarter. This post shows what the latest figures say, and how to read them without fooling yourself.
The headline: who added firms fastest
In April to June 2026, business administration and support services added new businesses faster than any other main trade, up 12.3% on the same quarter a year earlier.
Across the whole economy that quarter, 79,325 businesses opened. That was 2.2% more than the year before, and 9 of the 16 main trade groups were up.
So the average trade grew a little, and one trade grew a lot.
Why one good quarter proves almost nothing
Because the quarter before it went the other way.
In January to March 2026, openings across the UK fell 8.0% against the same quarter a year earlier. Fifteen of the sixteen main groups were down, and the biggest falls were in health and social care, and in finance and insurance.
Three months later, openings were up. Nothing about the British economy changed that fast. What changed was the comparison quarter.
This is the single most common mistake in market research. A trade press headline picks the quarter that suits the story. The honest version needs at least four quarters, and preferably the annual figures underneath them.
Growing trade. Here is how to get the names in it.
Tell us the kind of company you sell to. We find them on the public record, check the website and the email, and hand you the list. It takes about two minutes instead of an afternoon.
The two-number test
A trade is growing when openings beat closings. That is the whole test.
It sounds obvious, and it is routinely skipped, because openings alone look so much more exciting. Here are the 2024 annual rates for four trades, with both numbers side by side:
- Accommodation and food: 14.9% opened, 12.9% closed. Genuinely adding firms.
- Business administration and support: 14.4% opened, 13.5% closed. Adding firms, more slowly than the opening rate suggests.
- Retail: 11.4% opened, 10.9% closed. Roughly flat.
- Transport and storage: 15.6% opened, 16.5% closed. The highest opening rate of the four, and shrinking.
Transport and storage is the warning. On openings alone it looks like the hottest trade in the country. Put the closing rate next to it and it is a trade where more firms left than arrived.
Read one number and you get the wrong answer. Read both and you get the right one.
Churn is not the same as growth, and it is not worthless either
A trade with high openings and high closings is churning. That is a different market, not a bad one.
If you sell to a churning trade, then:
- Your list goes out of date quickly, so it needs refreshing rather than buying once.
- The new arrival is the opportunity, because they have no supplier yet.
- The failure rate is high, so payment terms matter more than usual.
If you sell to a still trade, like finance and insurance at 6.6% openings and 6.7% closings, almost the opposite is true. The same firms are there year after year. Nothing rewards speed. Everything rewards patience and a warm introduction.
The other kind of growth: firms that get bigger
There is a second definition of a growing trade, and it is often the more useful one. Not more firms. Bigger firms.
The ONS counts high-growth businesses: those with 10 or more employees that grew employment by an average of 20% or more a year over three years. In 2024 there were 14,330 of them, which is 4.9% of all businesses with 10 or more employees.
By trade, information and communication led at 9.2%, nearly double the all-industry rate. By region, London led at 6.6%.
This matters because the two definitions can disagree. A trade can add thousands of one-person firms while none of them ever grows. Another can add almost no new names while the existing firms double in size. If you sell something priced for a business with staff, the second trade is worth more to you than the first.
A method you can repeat
Four steps, all on free public data:
1. Pick the trade. Use the main industrial group, then narrow to the SIC codes underneath it. Our SIC code guide covers how those codes are put together. 2. Get both numbers. Openings and closings, same trade, same period, from the ONS business demography series. 3. Check four quarters, not one. If the direction flips every quarter, you have noise, not a trend. 4. Then check size. High-growth share tells you whether the firms in that trade are getting bigger, which is often what you are really asking.
Do that and you will disagree with a lot of published "fastest growing industry" lists. Usually because they did step two.
Turning a growing trade into a list of names
Once you have picked the trade, you need the firms in it, and that is a different job.
Every UK company sits on the public record with a trade code, an address and a start date. Leadistry reads that record. It then finds a working website and a verified business email for each company. A trade code turns into a list you can actually write to. You pick the codes, the area and how old the firms are.
Counting costs nothing, so you can size a trade before you commit to it. If the trade you have picked turns out to hold 400 firms in your region rather than 4,000, better to learn that in a minute than a month.
Where these figures come from
The quarterly figures are from the ONS quarterly business demography release for April to June 2026, published on 30 July 2026, and the January to March 2026 release. The annual opening and closing rates and the high-growth counts are from *Business demography, UK: 2024*, published on 20 November 2025.
For the whole economy at once, see how many UK businesses open and close each year. For how long the new arrivals last, see UK business survival rates by industry.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Try it on your own market
Pick your trade codes, pick your region, and see the real count before you plan anything around it. Start free with 25 leads, no card needed.
Common questions
Which UK industry is growing fastest right now?
On the most recent ONS quarterly figures, business administration and support services added new businesses fastest, up 12.3% in April to June 2026 against the same quarter a year earlier.
How do you measure whether an industry is growing?
Compare openings with closings in the same trade over the same period. A trade where openings beat closings is adding firms. A trade where openings are high but closings are higher is churning, not growing.
Which UK industry has the most high-growth businesses?
Information and communication. In 2024, 9.2% of its businesses with 10 or more employees met the ONS definition of high growth, against 4.9% across all industries.