How old UK accountancy firms are

In our London subset (postcode areas E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W, WC, shared addresses left out), the median company age is 9.1 years, across 11,981 trading companies.

Companies still on the register, by year of incorporation

This table counts the 63,661 accountancy companies on the register in the 1 October 2026 file (trading, dormant and those being struck off or wound up) by the year they were incorporated.

It is not a count of how many firms were set up each year. Companies that have since been dissolved are no longer on the register, so they are not in the file. Older years have had longer to lose companies this way, so the table cannot show whether more firms are being set up now than in the past. It also leaves out sole traders and partnerships, and companies formed by existing practices count the same as new ones.

Company age is not practice age

• A practice that traded as a sole trader or partnership may have formed its company years later. The company looks young; the practice is not.
• A practice may set up a new company when it restructures, takes on new owners or is bought by a group.
• One practice can run several companies of different ages.

Where a company record shows "company formed", it means the incorporation date of that company only. We will show a practice start date only where we have evidence for it.

What these figures cannot tell you

• How long a firm has been in practice, as above.
• How experienced the people are. A young company can be run by accountants with long careers.
• Whether a firm is good. Age is not a quality measure.

Why this matters if you run a business

If you are looking at a firm's company record and it says the company was formed recently, ask the firm how long it has been in practice and who will do your work. How we classify firms sets out how we measure company age.

How we counted accountancy companies

• Who is included: every live company on the Companies House register with SIC code 69201 (accounting and auditing), 69202 (bookkeeping) or 69203 (tax consultancy), with status "Active", leaving out companies that file dormant accounts. That gives 54,295 companies. The age bands and median use these trading companies.
• Year of incorporation table: uses all 63,661 accountancy companies in the file, including 6,261 dormant companies and 3,105 companies being struck off, in liquidation or in administration. Dissolved companies are not in the file.
• Who is left out: sole traders and partnerships are not on the company register, so they are not counted. Firms that chose a different SIC code are missed.
• Company age: the time from the incorporation date on Companies House to 12 October 2026.
• Companies, not practices: one practice can run several companies. Until we match companies into practices, all counts here are registered companies.