Which Are The Biggest Industries In The United Kingdom?
With the sixth-largest nominal GDP in the world, valued at $2.83 trillion, the United Kingdom, leading trading power and financial center, is the third-largest economy in Europe after Germany and France. The economy of the United Kingdom is divided into 17 broad categories including Professional, scientific, & technical; Construction; and Business administration, & support services.
A quantitative breakdown of the industrial profile: Professional, Scientific, and Technical constitute the largest sector of the United Kingdoms’ economy with a total number of 467,595 businesses, with only 17.01% businesses in the UK within this industry. Coming in second was construction with 351,250 businesses, third was business administration and support services with a 235,755 total, and fourth was information and communication, standing at 225,745.
At The CEOWORLD magazine, we analyzed the latest available data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which is a snapshot of the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 13 March 2020 and shows the number of VAT and/or PAYE based businesses by broad industry group, as defined by the Standard Industrial Classification. First, we looked at statistics across more than 2.7 million (2749700) micro, small, and medium-sized businesses that exist within 17 core industries.
Which Are The Biggest Industries In The United Kingdom?
| Rank | Industry | Number of Companies | % of total Companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Professional, scientific, and technical | 467595 | 0.1701 |
| 2 | Construction | 351250 | 0.1277 |
| 3 | Business administration, and support services | 235755 | 0.0857 |
| 4 | Information and communication | 225745 | 0.0821 |
| 5 | Retail | 208795 | 0.0759 |
| 6 | Arts, entertainment, recreation & other services | 175720 | 0.0639 |
| 7 | Accommodation and food services | 161695 | 0.0588 |
| 8 | Production | 152675 | 0.0555 |
| 9 | Agriculture, forestry, And fishing | 148845 | 0.0541 |
| 10 | Transport and Storage (inc postal) | 123075 | 0.0448 |
| 11 | Health | 103265 | 0.0376 |
| 12 | Property | 102340 | 0.0372 |
| 13 | Wholesale | 101330 | 0.0368 |
| 14 | Motor trades | 76910 | 0.028 |
| 15 | Finance and insurance | 62040 | 0.0225 |
| 16 | Education | 45000 | 0.0164 |
| 17 | Public administration and defence | 7665 | 0.0028 |
Languishing at the bottom of the table with a total of 7,665 organizations was public administration and defense. The next lowest number of enterprises came from the Education sector with a total of 45,000. The third lowest sector was Finance and insurance with a total of 62,040 and the fourth was Motor trades with 76,910 businesses in operation.
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