New businesses in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow

Auspector · Published: October 27, 2026

Between September 27 and October 27, 2026, 4,973 business records in London, 588 in Manchester, 550 in Birmingham and 314 in Glasgow entered our newly opened businesses section. London alone received more than three times as many as the other three combined; relative to its size in our database, Manchester received the most.

Bar chart of new business records between September 27 and October 27, 2026 in four UK cities: London 4,973, Manchester 588, Birmingham 550, Glasgow 314.

How many new businesses are there in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow?

London 4,973, Manchester 588, Birmingham 550 and Glasgow 314: that is how many records in each city entered our newly opened businesses section between September 27 and October 27, 2026. London’s figure averages about 166 a day, although arrivals swing from day to day: the date is when a record reached us, not when the business opened.

New business records in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow, September 27 – October 27, 2026
City	Wider area	New records	All records in our database	New per 1,000 records
London	Greater London	4,973	455,907	10.9
Manchester	Greater Manchester	588	39,235	15.0
Birmingham	West Midlands	550	64,773	8.5
Glasgow	Glasgow City	314	40,541	7.7

September 27 – October 27, 2026. A city is the locality on the record’s address; the wider area links to its county or council-area page. Compare the cities with each other, not with county or national totals (see the method box).

London alone received more than three times as many new records as the other three cities combined (1,452). Manchester has fewer records than Birmingham in our database (39,235 to 64,773) but received more new ones (588 to 550). Relative to size, Manchester leads with 15.0 new records per 1,000, and Glasgow has the fewest (7.7). Each city also has a wider area page — Greater London, Greater Manchester, West Midlands and Glasgow City — that follows the county or council-area boundary, not the address, and so takes in towns such as Croydon and Ilford, Salford and Stockport, or Wolverhampton and Coventry; its figures differ from the ones here.

Which sectors are opening?

New business records by sector in four UK cities, September 27 – October 27, 2026
Sector	London	Manchester	Birmingham	Glasgow
Restaurants	159	23	12	13
Hair and beauty salons	104	14	23	13
Auto repair shops	102	9	20	10
Construction companies	93	10	<5	6
Cafés	53	8	6	<5
Supermarkets and grocery stores	30	7	7	6
Bars and pubs	24	10	7	<5
Gyms and fitness studios	34	<5	<5	<5
Bakeries and pastry shops	29	<5	<5	<5
Pharmacies	29	<5	<5	<5
Dentists and dental clinics	22	<5	<5	<5
Car dealers	19	<5	<5	<5
Clothing stores	14	<5	<5	<5
Real estate agencies	9	<5	<5	<5

New records in the last 30 days. “<5”: fewer than five. Each sector links to its UK-wide data page. Counts are records; one business can have more than one. Compare a sector across cities rather than sectors within one city: some sectors carry a city on new records less often than others.

Read the table across, sector by sector. London leads every row by size alone, so the useful comparison is between the other three. Manchester and Birmingham received similar totals (588 and 550) but different mixes: Manchester had more new restaurants (23 to 12), Birmingham more hair and beauty salons (23 to 14) and auto repair shops (20 to 9). Construction companies and auto repair shops include businesses that serve customers across an area; they can have more than one record and carry a city less often, so their city counts are the least complete.

Outside London the numbers are small: 24 of the 42 sector counts for Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are below five, and only three reach 20. A few records either way can reorder them, so one 30-day window is not a trend. The 14 sectors are only part of the flow: between 14% and 23% of each city’s new records; everything else sits in other categories, each searchable under its own name.

How many list a phone or a website?

Phone and website on new business records in four UK cities, September 27 – October 27, 2026
City	New records	Phone number	Own website	Website information	No website information
London	4,973	67.8%	49.5%	50.6%	49.4%
Manchester	588	68.5%	53.7%	54.1%	45.9%
Birmingham	550	65.5%	42.5%	43.8%	56.2%
Glasgow	314	69.1%	44.9%	47.8%	52.2%

Shares of each city’s new records. Website information includes booking, appointment and other platform pages; a social media profile alone counts as no website.

Glasgow has the highest phone share of the four (69.1%), Birmingham the lowest (65.5%). Almost every new record with website information has its own domain: platform-only pages — a booking, appointment or other platform page with no site of its own — are at most 2.9% of new records in any of the four cities. Manchester has the highest own-website share (53.7%), Birmingham the lowest (42.5%). Birmingham has the highest share with no website information at all: 309 new records, 56.2%. An empty field does not prove there is no site, but it is a good first question.

What it means if you sell to new businesses in UK cities

London is a daily stream; the other three are weekly. New restaurant records averaged about 37 a week in London, against 5 in Manchester, 3 in Birmingham and 3 in Glasgow. Outside London, search the wider area rather than the city alone to build a list worth a field day, and save the search: new matches arrive by email every day.
Food and drink suppliers, payments. London added 265 new restaurant, café, bakery and bar records in the window, about 9 a day. The method for this sector: how to find new restaurants and cafés to sell to.
Salon suppliers, booking software, card terminals. New hair and beauty salons: London 104, Birmingham 23, Manchester 14 and Glasgow 13. After London, Birmingham is the next territory for this sector, ahead of Manchester.
Parts, tools, equipment hire, insurance. London’s new auto repair shops and construction companies add up to 195 records — the least complete city counts, so search the wider area too. Group records by phone number before you count businesses.
Web design. Birmingham has the highest share of new records with no website information (56.2%).

How to pull one city’s list

Location: United Kingdom, the county or council area (Greater London, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, Glasgow City), then the city or town — the same address locality as in this article.
Filters: newly opened businesses, then a sector or a narrower category. Categories are each record’s own, so “barber shop” or “tyre shop” can be a list of its own. Phone — has, for a call list; Website — none, for web design prospects.
Count, then open: search and counts are free on every plan; a credit is spent only when you first open a record, and an export counts as an open (pricing).

The other ways to find new businesses, and when each one is worth it: how to find newly opened businesses.

What about Companies House?

Companies House publishes counts of company incorporations, not of businesses opening their doors, and we know of no official series that counts openings city by city. The two measure different things: sole traders do not appear on the companies register at all; a company’s registered office can be an accountant’s address rather than the place it trades; and a chain’s new branch is a new location but no new company. Why the two numbers should be read side by side and never subtracted: UK company incorporations vs. businesses that open.

How this was measured

A record is one business location in our database, not a company: a chain with 40 branches is 40 records, and one business can have more than one record — more often in sectors that serve customers across an area, such as construction and auto repair. A new record entered our newly opened businesses section between September 27 and October 27, 2026 (up to our database build of October 27, 2026); the date is the day it reached us, not the business’s opening date.

A city is the locality on the record’s address, not the county or the metro area: “London” is the locality named London, inside Greater London. Croydon, Ilford and other places that appear under their own name on the address are separate localities and are not in the London figure. Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow follow the same rule: a neighbouring town with its own name on the address is counted under that name. The county and council-area pages follow their own boundaries, so their figures differ from the ones here.

Some new records do not carry a city yet. New records lack one more often than older records, and how often varies by sector — most often in businesses that serve customers across an area, such as construction. The city figures can therefore be compared with each other, sector by sector, but not with county or national totals: across the UK, 59,187 records entered the section in the same window, and that total also includes records with no city.

Sectors are fixed groups of categories — “auto repair shops”, for example, covers auto repair shops, car service centres, body shops, tyre shops and auto electricians. Fewer than five new records are shown as “<5”. Own website: the business’s own domain. Website information: an own website or a booking, appointment or other platform page; a social media profile on its own counts as neither. Shares describe our records, measured on October 27, 2026.

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