This dashboard uses data from the UK Companies House register of People with Significant Control (PSC) and its archived snapshots at the the National Archives.

The latest snapshot used in this dashboard is from 2025-07-22. Even though the register updates daily, this dashboards tries to report statistics for at least one snaphsot per month.

The PSC register is a public register that contains information about individuals or legal entities that have significant control over a company. This includes individuals who own more than 25% of the shares or voting rights in a company, or who otherwise exercise significant influence or control over the company. The PSC register is maintained by Companies House, the UK government’s official register of companies. The register is designed to increase transparency and accountability in corporate ownership and control, and to help prevent fraud and other illegal activities. Companies are mandated to report their PSC since 2017. Read more information on the Companies House website.

The major data limitation regards the type of companies that is covered in Companies House data. It regards registered (i.e. incorporated) companies. It does not include sole traders, self-employed etc.

The Companies House PSC register includes the full individual information (full name, date of birth, nationality) and their influence on the company (share of ownership or voting rights).

We classify company ownership using the number of PSCs, their type (individual or corporate), and whether any PSC appears to be a serial entrepreneur—defined as someone having entrepreneurial experience with any other company before the incorporation of the current company. Ownership types are grouped as follows:

• Corporate shareholder: if any PSC is a corporate entity (kind == “corporate-entity-person-with-significant-control”)
• Solo entrepreneur (new): one PSC, not previously linked to earlier firms
• Solo entrepreneur (serial): one PSC, previously involved in earlier companies
• Group of entrepreneurs (new): multiple PSCs, none of whom are serial
• Group of entrepreneurs (at least one serial): multiple PSCs, at least one of whom is serial

This identification is performed for each PSC snapshots matched against the company incorporation and dissolution dates from Companies House.

To assign gender, we rely on the honorific title (e.g. ‘Mr’, ‘Mrs’, ‘Ms’) included in each PSC’s name. We group PSCs as Male (M), Female (F), Non-binary-led, or mixed gender (in multi-person firms with diverse titles). Titles are classified as follows:

• Male: Mr, Sir, Lord, The Lord, Baron
• Female: Mrs, Ms, Miss, Madam, Dame, Lady, The Lady, Baroness, Hon Mrs, Hon Miss
• Non-binary-led: Mx, Ind
• Unknown: if no title is available or not among the above

In companies with more than one PSC, we assign the gender group as M or F if all PSCs have the same identified gender; Non-binary-led if all are non-binary; mixed gender if there is a combination; and unknown if no definitive classification is possible. For example, statistics report M should read as “\(x\) number of companies are male-led.”