UK Care Provider Business Index

As at 2026-07-12, the Companies House register shows 67,261 active companies with at least one care-related SIC code (87100, 87200, 87300, 87900, or 88100). This covers the full spectrum: residential nursing homes, supported living and learning disability services, elderly care homes, and domiciliary (home care) agencies.

The figure is an incorporated-company count only. Sole traders, partnerships, and businesses operating without a Companies House registration are not captured. The true number of care providers operating in the UK across all legal structures is materially higher. For regulated locations in England specifically, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) publishes a separate register (see the CQC data section below).

Net openings is incorporations minus dissolutions for the quarter. A positive number means more businesses registered than dissolved; negative means more dissolved than registered. Because dissolution filings lag actual closures by months, the rolling 4-quarter average (shown in the segment tables below) gives a more stable signal.

SIC codes: 87100. 4Q avg = rolling 4-quarter average net openings.

SIC codes: 87200, 87300, 87900. 4Q avg = rolling 4-quarter average net openings.

SIC codes: 88100. 4Q avg = rolling 4-quarter average net openings.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) registers and inspects care services in England. Its active locations dataset is a separate count from Companies House data: CQC counts regulated service locations (each physical address or service), while Companies House counts incorporated legal entities. A single company may operate multiple CQC-registered locations, and vice versa.

The CQC active locations dataset (sourced from the CQC transparency page) shows 57,725 active registered locations in England at the time of this data pull, of which 14,896 are flagged as care homes. The adult social care share breaks down as follows.

CQC HSCA Active Locations directory (England only), parsed from the ODS download. Counts are active registered locations at the file's publication date. Around 1.5% of rows have blank or shifted category cells in the source file and are excluded from the category breakdown (but included in the total). Care homes = locations flagged 'Care home? = Y'. CQC counts regulated locations, not companies, so figures are not directly comparable to the Companies House series.

A deeper, monthly-cadence read of care company formations, built from the same Companies House data using the estate's shared research-ingestion engine. It adds a sixth SIC code (88990, other social work activities not elsewhere classified, where supported-living operators frequently register) and computes the average number of incorporations by calendar month across all settled years, to show whether care company formation is seasonal.

Seasonality: average incorporations by calendar month

Each bar is the average number of new care companies (across all 6 SIC codes, deduplicated) incorporated in that calendar month, averaged across every settled year in the series. A flat pattern would mean no seasonality; a peak in a given month suggests founders cluster new registrations around it (for example, the start of a new tax year or calendar year).

Based on 11 years of settled monthly data through Apr 2026. The most recent 2 month(s) are provisional (Companies House indexing lag) and excluded.

Incorporations counted by incorporated_from/to date range per SIC code. Dissolutions counted by dissolved_from/to date range with company_status=dissolved. Each sub-segment aggregates one or more SIC codes. Rolling 4-quarter averages smooth the dissolution-lag effect (companies may cease trading months before formal strike-off). Counts reflect the state of the register at pull date. Companies House covers all UK-incorporated companies; CQC covers England-regulated locations only. These are different scopes and should not be directly compared.

Caveats

• Incorporated companies only: sole traders, partnerships, and unregistered care businesses are not visible in Companies House data.
• SIC codes are self-reported by the filing company. Domiciliary care agencies frequently mis-file under residential SIC codes (87100-87900) rather than the correct non-residential code (88100), understating the domiciliary segment.
• Dissolution date is the formal strike-off date, which typically lags actual trading closure by several months to over a year.
• A single business may operate across multiple SIC codes; each company is counted under its primary registered SIC.
• Companies House data covers the whole of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland). CQC data covers England-regulated locations only. These are different scopes: CH counts incorporated entities, CQC counts registered service locations.

Source

Data from the Companies House Advanced Search API, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Pull date: 2026-07-12. Refreshed quarterly.

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See also the UK Care Home Density & Quality Index, our region and local-authority level map of care home beds, CQC rating quality and closure churn.