You land on a UK company's website. It looks like a good fit for what you sell. Now you want three things: proof it's a real, active registered company, the name of the person worth contacting, and a verified email or phone to reach them. Doing that by hand is slow and error-prone. Here is the reliable way to do it, and how to do it without breaking UK marketing rules.
Step 1, Confirm it's a real registered company
Anyone can put "Ltd" in a footer. Before you spend time on a lead, confirm the company actually exists on the register.
- Scroll to the website footer. UK limited companies are legally required to show their registered company number and often "Registered in England and Wales". That number is your key.
- Search that number (or the company name) on [Companies House](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/). Check the status is Active, not Dissolved or in liquidation, and note the incorporation date and registered office.
- Look at the SIC codes. They tell you, in the company's own words, what kind of business it declared itself to be. Useful for qualifying fit. See our guide to SIC codes.
If there's no company number anywhere, you may be looking at a sole trader or partnership, which won't be on the companies register at all.
Step 2, Find the decision-maker
For most small UK companies, the person you want is a director. Companies House lists every current director (officer) of a limited company, with their name, role and appointment date. That's public, free, and far more reliable than guessing from a "Team" page.
- On the Companies House record, open People to see the officers.
- The director who has been there longest, or holds the most significant control (the PSC, person with significant control), is usually your best first contact at a small firm.
- Cross-reference with the company's own site and, where it's public, the director's LinkedIn for context before you reach out.
Step 3, Get a verified email or phone
This is where most people either give up or reach for a sketchy shortcut. Two ways NOT to do it:
- Don't guess the email format. Firing off messages to firstname@domain guesses bounces, harms your sender reputation, and annoys real people whose addresses you got wrong.
- Don't buy scraped consumer data. Marketing to individuals at their personal addresses without a lawful basis is how you end up on the wrong side of GDPR and PECR.
The compliant approach is to use the contact details the company itself has published on its own website (the business email, the enquiries line, the named contact on a Contact or About page). Marketing to a corporate subscriber (a limited company) is permitted under PECR without prior consent, provided you honour opt-outs. Our UK B2B data and GDPR guide covers the legal basis in full.
Doing all three in one click
The three steps above are exactly what the [Leadistry Chrome extension](/chrome-extension) automates. On any UK company's website it:
1. Checks the site against the Companies House register and confirms the registered company and number (Step 1). 2. Surfaces the director and their LinkedIn where publicly discoverable (Step 2). 3. Pulls the verified business email, phone and socials from the company's own public website, and saves the lot to your account (Step 3).
Instead of five minutes of tab-switching per lead, it's one click while you stay on the page. Cached companies are shown instantly and free; fresh lookups run in the background and are unlimited on any paid plan.
When you want a list, not a single lead
The extension is perfect when you find a company in the wild. But if you want *every* UK company matching a profile (a SIC code, a region, an incorporation window, or the no-website-yet flag), that's a search problem, not a browsing one. Leadistry's main search builds that list for you and enriches every row the same way. See how to find recently incorporated UK companies or find UK companies by postcode.
The bottom line
Finding a UK company's contact details properly means: confirm it's really registered, identify the director, and use the contact details the business itself published, not guessed or bought data. That keeps you fast and keeps you compliant.
The Leadistry Chrome extension does all three as you browse, free with any account. 10 trial leads on signup, no card required.
Leadistry maintains a live database of 5 million UK companies, enriched from the Companies House register with verified websites, business emails and social profiles. We write about the craft of finding and reaching the right businesses, first.
See how Leadistry works →