UK sector benchmarks
Public administration and defence: what the filed accounts say
Cash, creditors falling due within one year, current ratio, net assets and headcount for UK public administration and defence companies, split by size, from accounts filed at Companies House. Covering public administration, defence and compulsory social security activities.
Half of UK public administration and defence companies hold less than £1.42 of current assets for every pound falling due within the year, measured across 615 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.
| Figure | Lower quartile | Median | Upper quartile | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash at bank | £100 | £3,768 | £29,110 | 578 |
| Creditors due within one year | £727 | £4,873 | £23,383 | 799 |
| Current ratio | 0.65x | 1.42x | 3.10x | 615 |
| Net assets | £1 | £1,232 | £15,310 | 1,329 |
| Employees | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1,305 |
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.
| Figure | Lower quartile | Median | Upper quartile | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash at bank | £100 | £1,366 | £9,289 | 290 |
| Creditors due within one year | £400 | £2,216 | £10,007 | 554 |
| Current ratio | 0.52x | 1.28x | 3.34x | 393 |
| Net assets | £0 | £1,072 | £7,693 | 756 |
| Employees | 0 | 1 | 1 | 881 |
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.
| Figure | Lower quartile | Median | Upper quartile | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash at bank | £4,201 | £24,538 | £82,423 | 146 |
| Creditors due within one year | £5,579 | £16,929 | £56,678 | 195 |
| Current ratio | 0.95x | 1.52x | 2.86x | 172 |
| Net assets | £1,225 | £12,812 | £58,019 | 298 |
| Employees | 2 | 2 | 4 | 335 |
10 to 49 employees
established small companies
Scroll the table sideways for the upper quartile and the number of companies.
| Figure | Lower quartile | Median | Upper quartile | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash at bank | £23,161 | £106,582 | £282,032 | 61 |
| Creditors due within one year | Fewer than 50 companies in this sector and size band state this figure, so it is suppressed. | |||
| Current ratio | Fewer than 50 companies in this sector and size band state this figure, so it is suppressed. | |||
| Net assets | £10,228 | £114,055 | £702,418 | 72 |
| Employees | 13.3 | 22 | 31.8 | 78 |
50 or more employees
the largest band this dataset separates
No figure for this size band clears the 50-company floor, so the whole band is suppressed.
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, 18 clear the floor and 7 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, "Public administration and defence benchmarks", from Companies House filed accounts, 2026-Q4. https://www.cfopal.co.uk/benchmarks/public-administration-defence
Source: Companies House. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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