UK sector benchmarks

Agriculture, forestry and fishing: what the filed accounts say

Cash, creditors falling due within one year, current ratio, net assets and headcount for UK agriculture, forestry and fishing companies, split by size, from accounts filed at Companies House. Covering farming, growing, forestry, fishing and aquaculture.

Half of UK agriculture, forestry and fishing companies hold less than £1.10 of current assets for every pound falling due within the year, measured across 3,278 filed sets of accounts.

Figures as at 2026-Q4, the fourth quarter of 2026. Every row states the number of companies it is drawn from. Groups of fewer than 50 companies are suppressed and said to be suppressed. How these figures were made.

Source: Companies House. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

The figures

Quartiles by size band

A median is the middle company: half of this sector sits below it. The quartiles are the companies a quarter and three quarters of the way up. Sample sizes differ from row to row because each figure is counted only where a filing states it.

All sizes

every company in the sector, including those whose filing states no headcount

Scroll the table sideways for the upper quartile and the number of companies.

FigureLower quartileMedianUpper quartileCompanies
Cash at bank£2,125£27,353£154,9683,613
Creditors due within one year£10,984£64,248£249,6023,663
Current ratio0.38x1.10x2.95x3,278
Net assets£92£31,636£395,6516,136
Employees1236,584

0 to 1 employees

a director on their own, or close to it

Scroll the table sideways for the upper quartile and the number of companies.

FigureLower quartileMedianUpper quartileCompanies
Cash at bank£964£8,328£43,1031,147
Creditors due within one year£3,230£22,415£98,9991,726
Current ratio0.20x0.87x2.34x1,436
Net assets-£249£6,502£69,4082,492
Employees0113,059

2 to 9 employees

the band most owner-managed companies sit in

Scroll the table sideways for the upper quartile and the number of companies.

FigureLower quartileMedianUpper quartileCompanies
Cash at bank£9,119£54,017£202,0471,814
Creditors due within one year£28,571£107,393£315,0311,695
Current ratio0.55x1.35x3.47x1,605
Net assets£11,657£148,874£819,7972,702
Employees2343,074

10 to 49 employees

established small companies

Scroll the table sideways for the upper quartile and the number of companies.

FigureLower quartileMedianUpper quartileCompanies
Cash at bank£42,772£184,866£572,002351
Creditors due within one year£233,751£656,596£1,371,127199
Current ratio0.84x1.55x2.91x196
Net assets£287,128£1,198,208£3,367,082368
Employees121624384

50 or more employees

the largest band this dataset separates

Scroll the table sideways for the upper quartile and the number of companies.

FigureLower quartileMedianUpper quartileCompanies
Cash at bank£23,047£193,796£1,028,70766
Creditors due within one yearFewer than 50 companies in this sector and size band state this figure, so it is suppressed.
Current ratioFewer than 50 companies in this sector and size band state this figure, so it is suppressed.
Net assets£1,423,372£4,504,696£11,864,50463
Employees67.58014967

What is not here

There is no trading figure on this page, and there cannot be

A small company files abridged accounts, which carry a balance sheet and no trading account. So nothing on this page says what these companies take in or what they keep, and no amount of sample size would change that. Anyone quoting a sector trading figure from this source is quoting something the source does not hold.

There is no figure here for all UK companies either. A middle value taken across incomparable sectors is a number about nothing, and it is exactly the unsourced rule of thumb these pages exist to replace.

Of the 25 figures this sector could report, 23 clear the floor and 2 are suppressed for want of companies.

Citing this

Please use it, and please say where it came from

These figures are free to quote. If they are useful in something you are writing, this is the line we would like beside them.

CFO Pal, "Agriculture, forestry and fishing benchmarks", from Companies House filed accounts, 2026-Q4. https://www.cfopal.co.uk/benchmarks/agriculture-forestry-fishing

Source: Companies House. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.