What the public registers hold for your industry, what they leave out, and what people in it actually use the data for.
What the UK company register tells you about property businesses, what it does not, and why new incorporations matter more here than in most sectors.
Construction forms and dissolves companies faster than almost any sector, which makes the register both the best cheap due diligence you can run and the most misleading thing to count.
You cannot map shops from the company register, and people keep trying. What it is actually good for is finding trade buyers and checking them before you give them credit.
A naive SIC filter on financial services returns mostly holding companies. Get past that and this is the sector where the register's ownership data earns its keep.
The fastest-forming sector on the register, and the one where the register tells you least about size. Both of those are useful if you know which way round they run.
Accountancy practices are visible in the register in a way no other sector is, because thousands of companies use their address. That is either a feature or a trap depending on what you are counting.
Care is more consolidated than it looks, and the register is the only place the group structure behind individual homes and practices is visible.
Division 85 is not the school sector. It is the private training market, and once you know that the data becomes useful rather than confusing.
Consultants, recruiters and the firms other businesses run on
Restaurants, takeaways, pubs, cafes and hotels
Salons, gyms, sports clubs and personal care
Film, TV, music, publishing, advertising and the arts
Hauliers, couriers, taxi firms, warehousing and freight
Architects, engineers, testing labs and research