How do you estimate the size of a UK company before you call?

No single public field gives a UK company's headcount. The register of companies records directors, charges and filings, not staff numbers. To place a company in a rough size band before you call, combine three things: the average number of employees disclosed in its latest filed accounts, the people its own website names, and its current job postings. Used together, they get you to "around five", "a few dozen" or "a few hundred", which is enough to choose what to say.

Step 1: the average employees in filed accounts

Small and micro-entity companies have had to disclose the average number of employees during the period in the notes to their accounts, for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2016. The figure is the total employed at each month-end across the year, divided by twelve. A company with no employees should state that. Directors only count if they work under a contract of service.

Limits: it is an average over a past year, filed up to nine months after year-end for a private company, so it can lag by well over a year. Some companies file accounts without the note, and Companies House has said it may ask them to correct this. Use it as a floor, not a current figure.

Step 2: the people the company names

A company's own website often names its team, and the register lists its directors and persons with significant control. A site with a team page of forty names is not a five-person firm, whatever the accounts said two years ago. A company with two directors and no named staff is probably small, though some larger businesses are owned through a small number of directors.

Lockley reads each company's own website as well as the registers, and links each finding to its source, so a seller can see what the evidence for a company is before dialling.

Step 3: what it is hiring

Current job postings show the size of the problem it is trying to solve. A first hire in a function, such as a first finance role or a first IT role, suggests a small firm that has grown past what its owners can do themselves. A run of postings across several functions suggests a bigger operation. Lockley reads job postings from Adzuna as one of its nightly sources.

Three sources for estimating company size

Use the estimate, do not quote it

An estimate is for your preparation. Opening with "I see you have 23 staff" invites a correction. Opening with a record, such as the charge you saw registered or the role you saw advertised, keeps the conversation on something you can both check. If size matters to your offer, ask.

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