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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.thedatacity.com/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Since adding company births and deaths, we need to be clear as to what we’re presenting with our active companies. Our data is updated monthly via Companies House. Each company has a ‘Status’ field.

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Active companies

Our active companies are those where their Company status is only the word ‘Active’. We are an active company on Companies House: image png Feb 19 2025 10 42 15 8712 AM

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Active but in an unusual state

On Companies House, there are a range of other statuses. For example: “Active - Proposal To Strike Off”, “Liquidation”, “In Administration” etc. We consider these to be “Active but in an unusual state”. If a given company has a Company status of “Active” but their latest account filings are accounts for a dormant company, they are considered to be “Active but in an unusual state”. Here’s an example:\ image png Feb 19 2025 10 55 04 4422 AM

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Struck off (Dissolved)

Companies which are struck off from the register are considered non-active (dead). On Companies House, these are known as dissolved companies. This is an example of a struck off (dissolved) company and here’s how it looks on Companies House:\ image png Feb 19 2025 10 47 07 4671 AM

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UI Implementation

In Explore, you can filter using any or all of the three options mentioned above. The default filter is set to ‘Active’ companies only. Analyse will only analyse active companies. image png Feb 19 2025 10 59 07 5873 AM

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Background

Our implementation is different from the ONS’ definition in their business demography analysis. Their definition is as follows:
“Being active means that the business had either turnover or employment at any time during the reference year.”
We talk more about this in one of our blogs. We currently track companies back to 2015.

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Company Deaths in RTICs

At the moment we don’t track company deaths in RTICs and the cumulative active companies by year visualisation reflects the total number of companies that have existed in this sector at any point. Company deaths do occur within RTICs, and we are working on a way of better capturing these, using historical classifications of RTICs.

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Filtering

The “Active but in an unusual state” filter includes companies filing dormant accounts. Analyse will only analyse active companies. The “Active but in an unusual state” filter includes these dormant companies to ensure our active company filter aligns more closely with national statistical definitions and provides a more accurate picture of the UK’s business landscape. By removing companies that file dormant accounts from our “Active” company filter and categorising them in our “Active but in an unusual state”, we exclude entities that are technically registered but not actively trading, making our data more representative of real economic activity. We believe this approach brings us in line with methodologies used by organisations such as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the UK Business Data Survey. As a result, you can trust that when you filter for active companies, you are seeing businesses that are genuinely operating, leading to more precise insights.