UK sector benchmarks

Human health and social work activities: what the filed accounts say

Cash, creditors falling due within one year, current ratio, net assets and headcount for UK human health and social work companies, split by size, from accounts filed at Companies House. Covering medical and dental practices, care homes, domiciliary care, childminding and social work.

Half of UK human health and social work companies hold less than £1.62 of current assets for every pound falling due within the year, measured across 17,554 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£936£14,776£80,73214,451
Creditors due within one year£2,084£9,758£37,54420,954
Current ratio0.79x1.62x4.23x17,554
Net assets£50£4,395£44,69132,119
Employees01233,171

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£513£5,308£28,0146,128
Creditors due within one year£967£4,825£15,35212,909
Current ratio0.66x1.56x4.54x10,225
Net assets£49£2,662£19,75417,648
Employees01119,934

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£6,003£29,600£96,1524,038
Creditors due within one year£6,631£20,524£55,8805,756
Current ratio0.90x1.70x4.17x5,144
Net assets£985£16,955£89,5398,178
Employees2249,473

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£28,557£89,720£240,3182,110
Creditors due within one year£45,055£112,943£277,0941,692
Current ratio0.88x1.63x3.45x1,612
Net assets£16,824£124,123£487,0162,617
Employees1320302,854

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£83,469£237,513£549,906859
Creditors due within one year£222,588£489,598£1,406,304564
Current ratio1.02x1.61x2.66x551
Net assets£161,704£571,172£1,860,949841
Employees6078120910

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, 25 clear the floor and 0 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, "Human health and social work activities benchmarks", from Companies House filed accounts, 2026-Q4. https://www.cfopal.co.uk/benchmarks/health-social-work

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