UK sector benchmarks

Other service activities: what the filed accounts say

Cash, creditors falling due within one year, current ratio, net assets and headcount for UK other service activities companies, split by size, from accounts filed at Companies House. Covering membership organisations, repair of personal goods, hairdressing, beauty, funeral and wellbeing services.

Half of UK other service activities companies hold less than £1.17 of current assets for every pound falling due within the year, measured across 17,342 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£491£6,179£37,98214,049
Creditors due within one year£2,314£9,512£34,13620,334
Current ratio0.49x1.17x2.91x17,342
Net assets£1£1,774£18,64532,673
Employees11333,072

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£533£4,108£19,8536,058
Creditors due within one year£1,161£5,751£19,78511,390
Current ratio0.36x1.12x3.06x9,097
Net assets£0£1,512£13,37516,114
Employees01118,645

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£3,032£12,297£53,5235,256
Creditors due within one year£4,461£15,000£46,7918,072
Current ratio0.59x1.20x2.81x7,405
Net assets£220£5,766£34,26711,497
Employees23412,925

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£34,396£118,012£389,1061,025
Creditors due within one year£59,436£162,478£440,348750
Current ratio0.92x1.45x2.68x733
Net assets£15,055£148,464£569,0551,210
Employees1114211,349

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£98,806£344,845£1,053,573145
Creditors due within one year£482,539£1,272,774£3,609,59890
Current ratio0.91x1.50x2.65x89
Net assets£283,474£1,080,318£3,477,736138
Employees6282155153

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, "Other service activities benchmarks", from Companies House filed accounts, 2026-Q4. https://www.cfopal.co.uk/benchmarks/other-service-activities

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