Size analysis of businesses by ownership, size band, area and year
Next update expected:This dataset is not expected to be updated or replaced in the future
Updates
- 31st March 2026
Routine update to add new data and amend existing data where needed.
- 30th January 2026
- Dataset first published.
Main information
- Designation
- Accredited official statistics
- Data provider 1
- HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
- Data source 1
- Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI)
- Data provider 2
- Office for National Statistics (ONS)
- Data source 2
- Annual Population Survey (APS)
- Data provider 3
- Office for National Statistics (ONS)
- Data source 3
- Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR)
- Time period covered
- January 2003 to December 2025
Overview
- Summary of dataset and variables
This dataset provides data on the structure of enterprises active in Wales, including estimates for the very smallest businesses that operate below the VAT threshold.
The variables analysed are counts of the enterprises active in each area, together with related employment and turnover aggregates in each of the given size bands, based on the number of UK employees in the enterprise as a whole. Note that area breakdowns of the data are workplace based.
This dataset also includes a breakdown for whether the enterprises are owned in the UK or outside of the UK.
- Data collection or calculation
The data given are based on enterprises with some activity in Wales, regardless of the region of registration. In this context, an enterprise is taken to be an entire organisation, including its head office and all the individual UK sites, wherever they may be located. The region of the enterprise is usually based on the location of its head office, although the sites may be located in other regions. The figures given for employment and turnover for Wales in this analysis relate only to the sites of the enterprises located in Wales.
In all cases, the size band of the enterprise is based on the number of UK employees (whether full-time or part-time) in the enterprise. This ensures that an enterprise employing 10,000 UK staff but only a handful in Wales is categorised as a large, and not a micro, enterprise.
The enterprises covered are all private sector enterprises (that is companies, sole-proprietorships, partnerships, private non-profit making bodies and mutual associations), plus public corporations and nationalised bodies. Local and central government organisations are excluded.
The data have been derived from a number of sources. The primary source is a detailed extract taken in March of each year from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) maintained by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This gives details of all enterprises active in Wales, including the UK employment and turnover and derived figures for the Welsh elements of employment and turnover (using information about the sites in each enterprise which are located in Wales). It also includes identifiers for industry (using Standard Industrial Classification), geographical location and legal status of each enterprise, thus allowing the analysis given here.
Other data sources that feed into this data include the Annual Population Survey (APS) and Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI).
- Statistical quality
The IDBR covers a very high proportion of the employment and turnover in the UK, but because it excludes most of the very large number of smallest businesses that operate below the VAT threshold, its coverage in terms of the number of enterprises is only partial (around 50%). In order to correct for this, the figures presented here include estimates for unregistered enterprises, together with their related employment and turnover. These estimates for unregistered enterprises are calculated using a combination of: IDBR data; information on persons who are self-employed in their main or second job, taken from the Annual Population Survey carried out by the ONS; and information on the numbers of sole traders and partnerships from the Survey of Personal Incomes data provided by HM Revenue and Customs.
Estimates for turnover exclude figures for the financial and business services sector throughout this dataset. This is because the turnover information that is recorded on the IDBR for enterprises in the financial services sector also includes the amounts involved in the transactions carried out by these enterprises and is therefore not comparable to turnover information in the other sectors.
Turnover data are not comparable with data prior to 2010 due to a break in the time series caused by the move to SIC 2007 industry definitions.
The zero employee size band also includes companies with one employee. This is because people who work on their own and register as a company automatically become an employee of the company when it is set up. Without this adjustment, the numbers of businesses with zero employees will change purely because of changes in legal status (which can be driven by changes in tax / liability laws for example), rather than by any real change in the economy.
As the analysis is based on the concept of enterprises active in an area, the enterprise counts for local authorities will not add up to the Wales totals. This is because an individual enterprise active in Wales may be active in more than one of the local authorities. This could lead to the individual enterprise being counted multiple times when summing different areas
- Rounding applied
As all enterprise counts and employment aggregates in this dataset have been independently rounded to the nearest 5 and 100 respectively, and all turnover aggregates independently rounded to the nearest million pounds, the figures may not add up exactly.
Published by
- Organisation
- Welsh Government
- Contact email
- economic.stats@gov.wales