New UK software company formations rose 293.9% between 2016 and 2025
A sourced, monthly read on new UK tech company formations, drawn from Companies House public records. Covering software development, IT consultancy, IT services, data processing and software publishing. Updated Apr 2026.
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API (Companies House). Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.
Key findings
- New software development companies (SIC 62012) grew from 6,961 in 2016 to 27,417 in 2025, a rise of 293.9%, a 3.9× increase.
- In the 12 months to Apr 2026, 68,512 UK tech companies were incorporated across all five SIC codes tracked here.
- Formations peaked in Apr 2026 at 3,818 software development companies in a single month, the highest on record.
- The all-tech union rose 85.2% over the decade, from 34,104 to 63,146 annually, a much slower pace than the software-development-specific growth, showing formation is concentrating in software development relative to IT consultancy and services.
- Year-on-year growth in Apr 2026 was +76.8% for software development companies.
Source: Companies House Advanced Search API, under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Figures may be cited with attribution to Founder Tax Partners. The most recent 2 months of incorporation data are provisional (Companies House indexing lag) and are excluded from the headline figures above.
Software development company formations by year
New companies incorporated each calendar year under SIC 62012 (business and domestic software development). Only complete calendar years are shown.
The monthly trend, last 3 years
Monthly software development company formations from Jul 2023 to Apr 2026. The most recent 2 months (highlighted) are provisional.
By tech SIC code, Apr 2026
New company formations across all five tracked SIC codes in the latest settled month.
| SIC code | What it covers | New companies |
|---|---|---|
| 58290 | Other software publishing | 767 |
| 62012 | Business and domestic software development | 3,818 |
| 62020 | Information technology consultancy activities | 2,660 |
| 62090 | Other information technology service activities | 1,764 |
| 63110 | Data processing, hosting and related activities | 652 |
| All 5 codes (deduplicated) | Unique companies across all tracked SIC codes | 6,825 |
Tax-year seasonality in tech incorporations
Averaged across 2016 to 2025, new tech company formations (all five SIC codes combined) show a consistent spike in the run-up to the UK tax year boundary on 5 April, before falling back in April itself. The likely driver is tax-year-boundary planning: incorporating before 6 April lets a founder open their company's accounting period at the start of the new tax year, avoiding overlapping periods and capturing a full year of company-level tax efficiency from day one.
Average monthly incorporations, all-tech union, 2016 to 2025.
Methodology and sources
Incorporations. For each month, we query the Companies House Advanced Search API for companies incorporated under each of five tech SIC codes: 62012 (business and domestic software development, the primary measure), 62020 (IT consultancy), 62090 (other IT services), 63110 (data processing and hosting), and 58290 (other software publishing). The deduplicated union counts each company once even where it registers under multiple codes in this set. Counts are gross: a company that has since been dissolved still appears on the register, so the series carries no survivorship bias. The most recent 2 months are provisional and excluded from headline figures.
Updated. Incorporations to Apr 2026 (settled data). Data generated Jul 2026.
- Companies House Advanced Search API (Companies House)
Download the incorporation data (CSV)
Free to cite and republish with attribution to Founder Tax Partners. This page is a data summary and does not constitute tax advice on any individual situation.
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Frequently asked questions
What does the UK Tech Formations Index measure?
It counts new companies incorporated each month under five UK tech Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes: business and domestic software development (62012, the primary measure), IT consultancy (62020), other IT services (62090), data processing and hosting (63110), and other software publishing (58290). The deduplicated union across all five is reported alongside the primary measure. Counts are gross: companies that have since been dissolved remain on the register, so there is no survivorship bias.
Why have UK software company formations grown so fast?
New software development company formations (SIC 62012) rose 293.9% between 2016 and 2025, far outpacing the 85.2% rise across the whole 5-code tech union over the same period. Falling barriers to starting a software business (cloud infrastructure, low-code tools, remote-first hiring), the tax efficiency of operating through a limited company at higher profit levels, and the post-pandemic acceleration in software adoption across every industry have all contributed.
Where does this data come from?
All incorporation counts come from the Companies House Advanced Search API. Companies House is the UK register of companies, operated by an executive agency of the Department for Business and Trade, and its data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The figures are updated monthly, though the most recent two months are provisional due to indexing lag.
What does 'provisional' mean on this index?
Companies House indexes very recent incorporations with a short lag of several weeks. The two most recent months in the series are therefore provisional and are excluded from all headline figures and decade comparisons to avoid understating the trend; they will typically be revised upward once indexing catches up.
How does this differ from the site's other Companies House research page?
This index tracks monthly formation velocity and seasonality for a narrower, software-focused SIC cluster. The site's UK Startup Formation and Survival Index uses a broader 8-code cluster (also including games publishing and web portals) at annual and quarterly grain, and focuses on the current active-versus-dissolved snapshot rather than the month-by-month formation trend.