UK SIC 2007 · 28220
Manufacture of lifting and handling equipment (SIC code 28220)
Manufacture of lifting and handling equipment is UK SIC code 28220. It sits in division 28 (Manufacture of machinery and equipment n.e.c.) of the SIC 2007 list. On the August 2026 Companies House register, 879 active UK companies list 28220 among their SIC codes. 779 of them list it first. That makes it the third most used code in its division.
Companies here build machines. That covers pumps, lifting gear, packaging lines, agricultural and food processing machinery, machine tools and every special rig in between. The most common UK code is 28990, other special-purpose machinery. That says a lot about the sector. Much of it builds bespoke or short-run equipment for one industry, not catalogue products. A typical firm designs, fabricates and commissions the whole machine. That is what marks them out from the component makers and subcontract shops in division 25.
Who prospects SIC 28220 companies
Machine builders need mechanical and controls engineers, and those are scarce. Technical recruiters therefore watch this division all year. Any sign of headcount growth or a bigger unit brings them in. Suppliers of drives, bearings, pneumatics and control gear track the same firms. Export advisers do too, because UK special-purpose machinery sells worldwide. A new incorporation often means experienced engineers have left a larger builder with a customer in hand. They need design software, insurance and credit lines at once. Accountants time capital allowance and R&D work around accounts deadlines.
Lead generation for recruiters →How to read SIC 28220
SIC 28220 is a five-digit code, and the digits are not arbitrary. The first two, 28, are the division, manufacture of machinery and equipment n.e.c.. Add the third and you have group 282; 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 28220 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 28220 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 28220 are London (57), Sheffield (22), Birmingham (14), Nottingham (13) and Leicester (12). 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 28220 as a filter
879 companies is 0.02 per cent of the 5,190,464 active companies on the UK register, and ranks 28220 third most used of the 5 codes we track in division 28. 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 28220
Almost everybody who uses 28220 means it: 779 of 879 companies put it first, leaving only 100 carrying it as a secondary code. That makes it an unusually clean filter. You can match on the code alone and trust that the companies you get really are in this line of work.
These companies are spread out. London is the largest single cluster at 6 per cent and the top five post towns together hold only 13 per cent, so the remaining 87 per cent sits across the rest of the country. A regional filter narrows this list without gutting it, which makes it a reasonable code to work territory by territory.
In practice the code on its own is rarely the whole filter. Pair 28220 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: 28220, registered office in London, incorporated in the last ninety days, which turns a 879 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 28220 clusters in the UK
ACTIVE COMPANIES BY REGISTERED-OFFICE POST TOWN · COMPANIES HOUSE REGISTER, AUGUST 2026
SIC 28220 companies, as leads
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About SIC 28220
How many UK companies use SIC code 28220?
879 active UK companies list 28220 (Manufacture of lifting and handling equipment) among their registered SIC codes. Each company may register up to four. Of those, 779 put it first. The figures come from the August 2026 Companies House register snapshot, and count active companies only.
How do I choose between division 28 and division 25 for an engineering business?
Division 28 is for finished machines and equipment. Division 25 is for fabricated metal products and machined components. A firm building complete packaging lines sits in 28. A firm machining parts for those lines sits in 25. If you do both, list codes from each division. Companies House allows up to four codes and does not mind mixing divisions.
We build one-off machines for different industries. Is 28990 right, or should we pick an industry-specific code?
28990 exists for exactly this case. It is the safest choice when your machines serve varied sectors. The industry codes, such as food processing or agricultural machinery, suit firms tied to one market. You can switch later if that changes. Update SIC codes through the confirmation statement whenever your focus shifts. No evidence and no approval are needed.
Find UK SIC 28220 companies
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