FOI Reference: FOI/2021/3031
You asked
Could you supply:
A list of all companies in the UK with more than >2500 employees (most recent year)
A list of all companies in the UK with more than >1000 employees (most recent year)
We said
Thank you for your request.
Unfortunately, we cannot release information on individual businesses, as this would be considered personal information.
Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) renders it an offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individual businesses can be identified, we find that Section 44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies. Section 44 is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
For information, ONS 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. It is created using an extract of the Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR) taken on 12th March 2021.
If you require any further analysis or information, please feel free to contact the Inter-Departmental Business Register Data Analysis Service (IDBRDAS) at IDBRDAS@ons.gov.uk.