UK business signals, week to 17 October 2026: what rose, what fell

New planning sites were the signal that moved most in the week 10 to 17 October 2026: 446, against 91 the week before. Public contract awards fell from 222 to 111, and new charges registered at Companies House fell from 6,959 to 2,457. Significant job postings rose from 379 to 458.

These are counts from the Lockley index, taken by the date on each record. They describe public filings and postings, not the whole economy, and a week-on-week swing is often a matter of when records were filed rather than a change in underlying activity.

Signals this week and the week before

What rose

Planning sites were the largest move. Almost five times as many new sites appeared in the planning registers as the week before. A new site is a physical commitment: someone intends to build, convert or occupy, and that usually brings a need for insurance, fit-out, security, cleaning, telecoms and staff. A seller in those trades gains a named company and a dated application to refer to.

Significant job postings also rose, from 379 to 458. A posting is a reason to call a recruitment agency competitor, a training provider or a software supplier whose product the new hire will use. First-of-function hires, where a company hires for the first time in a role such as finance or IT, were close to flat at 112 against 120. They are rarer than general postings, which is why they are worth reading one by one.

What fell

Public contract awards halved, from 222 to 111. Awards are published in batches and often late, so a quiet week can follow a busy one without any change in buying. Funding rounds fell from 861 to 516. New charges registered at Companies House fell from 6,959 to 2,457, roughly a third of the week before. A charge means a lender has taken security over a company's assets, so it is a useful lead for brokers, insolvency practitioners and advisers, but its count follows lender filing patterns closely.

Director changes were 39,428, against 45,385. At that volume the number alone says little. What matters is which changes sit at companies in your sector and size band.

How a seller should use a weekly count

Read the count as a measure of how many records exist this week, not as a forecast. A week with 16 public contracts ending leaves little to work with in that category, while a week with 446 new planning sites leaves plenty. If your trade depends on one signal, a low week means widening to a second one rather than lowering the bar on the first.

Check any single record before you call. Each finding in Lockley links to the record it came from, so the filing or application can be read in a minute. Our guide on how to check a buying signal is real covers that routine, and the guide on why weekly signal counts swing explains the variation shown here.

Method

All counts are taken from the Lockley index and dated by the date on the record, for the periods shown. The index reads Companies House, Contracts Finder and Find a Tender, Adzuna job postings and planning registers. The expansions figure covers this week only, so no comparison is given.

Questions