1,518 new UK software companies in one week, pulled in 7 seconds: 1 in 5 share just three addresses

Every week a few thousand new companies appear on the UK register. If you sell to startups (accountants, banks, insurance, hosting, recruiters), the useful question is simple: which ones are new, what do they do, and where are they?

So we asked it for one industry. One run of our New Companies Actor on Apify, country GB, UK SIC codes starting with 62 (software and IT services), registered in the last two weeks:

• Time: 7 seconds from request to rows (the run itself took 3.4 s).
• Cost: under a cent of compute on our side. A user pays $1 per 1,000 companies on the Starter tier, so these 1,518 rows are about $1.52.
• Coverage: 1,518 companies registered between 26 and 31 October 2026.

Every number below comes from that one run. The data is Companies House's free company data product, under the Open Government Licence.

The input

{
  "country": "GB",
  "incorporatedSince": "2 weeks",
  "industry": "62",
  "maxResults": 2000,
  "onlyNew": false
}

industry matches the start of a code, so 62 covers 62011, 62012, 62020, 62030 and 62090. Set onlyNew to true on a weekly schedule and each run returns only the companies you haven't had before.

The Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
from collections import Counter

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("locaihost/new-companies").call(run_input={
    "country": "GB",
    "incorporatedSince": "2 weeks",
    "industry": "62",
    "maxResults": 2000,
    "onlyNew": False,
})
rows = list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())

print(len(rows))
print(Counter(r["incorporated"] for r in rows).most_common())
print(Counter(r["postcode"] for r in rows).most_common(5))

Each row has the registry number, name, status, legal form, incorporation date, town, postcode, every SIC code with its label, and a link to the company's page on the register.

1. About 250 to 400 a day, and Tuesday is the peak

That's one sector only. If you call or email new companies, the first half of the week gives you the most to work with.

2. "Software development" is the default answer

A company can list up to four codes, and 968 of the 1,518 (64%) listed more than one. The most common codes outside the 62 group were software publishing (223), data processing and hosting (163), web portals (139), management consultancy (98) and online retail (83). That second code often says more about what the company really does than the first one does.

3. 1 in 5 share just three addresses

These are registered-office services: businesses that let founders use their address on the public register, and forward the post. So "London" (680 companies, 45%) overstates how many founders actually work in London, and the postcode is not where the company is.

If you sell to local businesses, filter these addresses out. If you sell to founders anywhere, the opposite holds: those 400-odd rows are real new companies, just with a service address.

Outside London the top towns were Manchester (33), Mildenhall (31, almost all at one service address), Birmingham (20), Liverpool (16), Glasgow and Cardiff (13 each).

4. What they call themselves

80 new companies in one week put "AI" in their name, about 5% of the sector. Nearly all are private limited companies (1,508); there were 7 community interest companies and 2 companies limited by guarantee.

Honest limits

• The register is monthly here. We load Companies House's free bulk file, which it publishes once a month, so the newest company in this run was registered on 31 October. If you need same-day new companies, this isn't it yet.
• No websites yet. Only 1 of 1,518 had a website we could link. A company a week old rarely has one. Our open company graph links websites as they appear, so re-running the same filter in a month gives better coverage.
• SIC codes are self-declared. Founders pick them at registration, and plenty pick 62012 for anything with a laptop.
• Organisations only. The Actor never returns directors, owners or people with significant control, and it drops sole traders.

Price

New Companies costs $1 per 1,000 companies on the Starter tier, less on Scale and Business, plus a one-time start fee of $0.00005. It covers the UK, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Czechia, Ireland, Latvia, Singapore, Canada and several US states. Try it here: apify.com/locaihost/new-companies.