FOI reference: FOI-2025-2987
You asked
Do you have a record of the purpose of each commercial building in Britain i.e. how many are a factory, versus an office, versus a retail outlet, versus a hospital etc.
Do you have a count of each business in Britain by SIC code?
We said
Thank you for your request.
Unfortunately, we do not hold a record of the purpose for each commercial building in Britain. Our Nomis web link can provide you with information on Enterprises (businesses) and Local Units (sites).
The Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) holds all businesses registered for VAT and/or PAYE. We produce an annual publication called UK Business: Activity, size and location. This publication breaks down the number of UK businesses (registered for VAT and/or PAYE) by geography, employment size-band, industry and legal status.
NOMIS web allows users to break down our UK Business data by various means. These data can be found under the UK Business Counts option. Data are available between 2010 and 2024. Through the ONS Data Analysis Service, we can also provide non-disclosive counts of businesses which can include aggregated variables such as employment/employees and turnover values for the corresponding business counts.
If you require non-disclosive data, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the team at idbrdas@ons.gov.uk.
As the data requested in Q2 is reasonably accessible via another route, Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies.