UK SIC 2007 · 20420
Manufacture of perfumes and toilet preparations (SIC code 20420)
Manufacture of perfumes and toilet preparations is UK SIC code 20420. It sits in division 20 (Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products) of the SIC 2007 list. On the August 2026 Companies House register, 2,772 active UK companies list 20420 among their SIC codes. 2,356 of them list it first. That makes it the most used code in its division.
Division 20 covers industrial chemistry. The busiest corner of it on the UK register is 20420, manufacture of perfumes and toilet preparations. That code holds the indie beauty boom: skincare, candle and cosmetics brands, soap makers and fragrance houses. Many are recent start-ups blending in small batches. The rest of the division is older and heavier. It holds makers of paints, cleaning products, adhesives and industrial chemicals. A kitchen-table skincare label and a coatings plant share one division, which makes it an odd mix.
Related SIC codes
Who prospects SIC 20420 companies
Insurance brokers sell here for one reason. Product liability cover is essential for anything you put on skin. A new cosmetics brand needs it before its first sale. Regulatory consultants doing safety assessments and cosmetics compliance chase the same new companies. So do contract manufacturers and packaging suppliers. A young company with a weak website is usually mid-launch, which is when all of those services get bought. At the industrial end, growth and filing activity tell you more. They point to buying rounds for equipment, compliance and specialist staff.
Lead generation for accountants & bookkeepers →How to read SIC 20420
SIC 20420 is a five-digit code, and the digits are not arbitrary. The first two, 20, are the division, manufacture of chemicals and chemical products. Add the third and you have group 204; the fourth narrows it to a class, and the fifth to the subclass, which is the level Companies House actually asks a company to pick. The whole division sits under section C, manufacturing, the broadest tier there is. Reading a code left to right therefore goes from a whole sector down to one activity.
More on how SIC 20420 is built
A company chooses its own codes when it incorporates and can change them on any confirmation statement. It may list up to four, and Companies House does not check whether they are right. That is why 20420 is worth reading as a claim the company made about itself rather than as a verified fact, and why the first-position and any-position counts above differ.
Measured on the August 2026 register, the busiest registered-office post towns for 20420 are London (1,005), Manchester (65), Birmingham (53), Leicester (34) and Glasgow (29). Those are registered-office locations, which is where the paperwork sits rather than necessarily where the work happens, so treat them as where to start looking rather than as a service area.
Using SIC 20420 as a filter
2,772 companies is 0.05 per cent of the 5,190,464 active companies on the UK register, and ranks 20420 most used of the 6 codes we track in division 20. That is the pool before any filter. Whether it is a big market for you depends on what you sell, but it is the number every other filter on this page cuts down from.
More on filtering by SIC 20420
2,356 companies put 20420 first and a further 416, 15 per cent, list it in one of their other three SIC slots. That gap is the difference between a tight list and a broad one. First-code-only is the safer filter when you are writing to them; matching any position is worth it when you need the volume.
The population is concentrated: the five busiest post towns hold 43 per cent of it, and London alone accounts for 36 per cent. If you sell nationally, those five towns are most of the market. If you sell locally and you are not in one of them, expect a much smaller pool and widen the radius early.
In practice the code on its own is rarely the whole filter. Pair 20420 with an incorporation date to catch companies in their first months, when they are still choosing suppliers, or with a filing deadline to reach them while the year end is on their mind. A worked example for this code: 20420, registered office in London, incorporated in the last ninety days, which turns a 2,772 company pool into a list you can write to in an afternoon. Add the poor-website filter if what you sell is a website, or a recent change of officer if you sell to whoever just took the job. Every company you pull carries the Companies House record, the director's name, a verified website and a verified email, and the ones we cannot complete are not charged.
Where SIC 20420 clusters in the UK
ACTIVE COMPANIES BY REGISTERED-OFFICE POST TOWN · COMPANIES HOUSE REGISTER, AUGUST 2026
SIC 20420 companies, as leads
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About SIC 20420
How many UK companies use SIC code 20420?
2,772 active UK companies list 20420 (Manufacture of perfumes and toilet preparations) among their registered SIC codes. Each company may register up to four. Of those, 2,356 put it first. The figures come from the August 2026 Companies House register snapshot, and count active companies only.
Which SIC code should a small cosmetics or candle business choose?
If you make the products yourself, 20420 is the closest fit. It is manufacture of perfumes and toilet preparations, and it covers cosmetics, soaps and toiletries. Candle makers often use it too, or choose a code from division 32. If you only sell goods made by others, a retail code suits you better. The choice is self-declared and carries no regulatory weight. Cosmetics rules apply based on what you actually do.
Does registering under a chemicals SIC code bring extra reporting requirements?
Not from Companies House. It treats every SIC code the same for filing purposes. Duties like REACH registration, cosmetics product notifications and COSHH compliance come from your real activities and products. They never come from the code on the public record. Keep the code accurate anyway. Banks, insurers and trade customers use it to understand your business before they deal with you.
Find UK SIC 20420 companies
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