UK Companies & Directors by Industry 🇬🇧

Build UK B2B lead lists in seconds. Search the official Companies House registry by industry code, location, status, and date — then enrich every result with active directors ready for outreach. Pay only for what you use. No subscription.

💡 Better than a scraper. This Actor uses the official Companies House API, so data is live, accurate, and won't break when the website changes. Other "Companies House scrapers" on this store scrape HTML — slower, less reliable, and often missing fields.

---

⭐ Why use this Actor

Most UK Companies House scrapers make you start with a list of company names or a search URL. That's fine if you already know who you're looking for — but useless for prospecting.

This Actor lets you discover companies you've never heard of. Type an industry code (43220 = plumbers) and a location (Manchester) and you'll get every active UK company that matches, with their decision-makers attached.

What makes this different

Feature	This Actor	Other UK Companies House Actors
Search by industry (SIC code)	✅ Built-in	❌ Need to construct a URL manually
Filter by location	✅ Built-in	❌ Need to construct a URL manually
Filter by company status	✅ Built-in	❌ Need to construct a URL manually
Filter by incorporation date	✅ Built-in	Sometimes
Active-only director filter	✅	❌
One row per director (for mail-merge)	✅	❌
Pricing	Pay per result, no minimum	Mostly $20–30/month subscription
Setup time	60 seconds (free API key)	60 seconds

---

📊 What you get per company

• Company name & registration number
• Registered office address (full, with postcode)
• All SIC codes (industry classifications)
• Company status (active, dissolved, etc.)
• Company type (Ltd, PLC, LLP)
• Incorporation date
• Direct link to the official Companies House record

With director enrichment turned on, every row also gets:

• Director full name & role (director / secretary / LLP member)
• Date of appointment
• Occupation (when registered)
• Nationality & country of residence
• Date of birth (year + month, as published by Companies House)
• Director's registered correspondence address

Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML — or pipe straight into your CRM, Make/Zapier/n8n workflow, or another Actor.

---

🎯 Example use cases

Lead-gen agency targeting trades

Target: Active UK plumbing companies in Greater Manchester incorporated in the last 3 years, with current directors for cold outreach. Input: SIC codes: 43220, Location: Manchester, Incorporated from: 2023-01-01, Include directors: ☑, Active directors only: ☑, One row per director: ☑ Result: A mail-merge-ready CSV with director names, occupations, and addresses.

Recruitment firm

Target: Every active solicitors' firm in Birmingham, with managing partners' details. Input: SIC codes: 69102, Location: Birmingham, Include directors: ☑

Competitor analysis / market sizing

Target: All active UK web development companies. Input: SIC codes: 62012, 62020, 63120, Status: Active

New business pipeline for accountants

Target: Companies incorporated this month — they all need an accountant. Input: Incorporated from: 2026-05-01, Status: Active, Include directors: ☑

Distressed-asset / M&A sourcing

Target: Companies in administration in your sector. Input: SIC codes: [your industry], Status: Administration, Liquidation

---

⚡ Getting started (under 2 minutes)

Step 1 — Get a free Companies House API key (60 sec)

📘 Follow the ./API_KEY_SETUP.md in the Information tab.

TL;DR: Register at find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/signin → create a Live application → generate a REST key → paste it into the Actor.

The key is free, never expires, and supports 600 requests every 5 minutes — far more than you'll ever need.

Step 2 — Run the Actor

1. Paste your API key into the Companies House API key field
2. Choose your filters (SIC code, location, etc.)
3. (Optional) Tick Include directors to enrich every row with decision-makers
4. Click Start — your data appears in the Output tab

---

🏭 SIC code reference

SIC stands for Standard Industrial Classification. Every UK company is assigned one or more 5-digit SIC codes describing what they do.

🔨 Construction & trades

SIC Code	Industry
41100	Development of building projects
41201	Construction of commercial buildings
41202	Construction of domestic buildings
43110	Demolition
43120	Site preparation
43210	Electrical installation
43220	Plumbing, heat & air-conditioning installation
43290	Other construction installation
43310	Plastering
43320	Joinery installation
43330	Floor and wall covering
43341	Painting
43342	Glazing
43390	Other building completion and finishing
43910	Roofing activities
43991	Scaffold erection
43999	Other specialised construction activities

🏠 Property & real estate

SIC Code	Industry
41100	Development of building projects
68100	Buying and selling of own real estate
68201	Renting and operating of Housing Association real estate
68202	Letting and operating of conference and exhibition centres
68209	Other letting and operating of own or leased real estate
68310	Real estate agencies
68320	Management of real estate on a fee or contract basis

🍽️ Food, hospitality & retail

SIC Code	Industry
47110	Retail sale in non-specialised stores (supermarkets)
47220	Retail sale of meat and meat products
47710	Retail sale of clothing
47910	Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet
55100	Hotels and similar accommodation
55201	Holiday centres and villages
55300	Campsites
56101	Licensed restaurants
56102	Unlicensed restaurants and cafes
56103	Take-away food shops and mobile food stands
56210	Event catering activities
56301	Licensed clubs
56302	Public houses and bars

💻 Tech, IT & digital

SIC Code	Industry
62011	Ready-made interactive leisure and entertainment software
62012	Business and domestic software development
62020	Information technology consultancy activities
62030	Computer facilities management activities
62090	Other information technology service activities
63110	Data processing, hosting and related activities
63120	Web portals

📈 Professional services

SIC Code	Industry
69101	Barristers at law
69102	Solicitors
69109	Activities of patent and copyright agents
69201	Accounting and auditing activities
69202	Bookkeeping activities
69203	Tax consultancy
70210	Public relations and communications activities
70221	Financial management
70229	Management consultancy activities (other)
73110	Advertising agencies
73120	Media representation services
73200	Market research and public opinion polling
74201	Portrait photographic activities
74202	Other specialist photography
74300	Translation and interpretation activities
74909	Other professional, scientific and technical activities

🏥 Healthcare & wellbeing

SIC Code	Industry
86101	Hospital activities
86210	General medical practice activities
86220	Specialists medical practice activities
86230	Dental practice activities
86900	Other human health activities
87100	Residential nursing care activities
96020	Hairdressing and other beauty treatment
96040	Physical well-being activities

🚚 Transport & logistics

SIC Code	Industry
49410	Freight transport by road
49420	Removal services
52100	Warehousing and storage
52211	Operation of rail freight terminals
53201	Licensed carriers
53202	Unlicensed carriers

🛠️ Manufacturing (common)

SIC Code	Industry
10710	Manufacture of bread; fresh pastry and cakes
14130	Manufacture of other outerwear
25110	Manufacture of metal structures
25120	Manufacture of doors and windows of metal
31090	Manufacture of other furniture
32500	Manufacture of medical and dental instruments

Can't find your industry? Browse the full list at the ONS SIC 2007 reference (~700 codes in total).

---

📋 Output examples

Default mode (companies only)

{
  "companyName": "RICHARDS SIMMONS HEATING LTD",
  "companyNumber": "11712768",
  "companyStatus": "active",
  "companyType": "ltd",
  "dateOfCreation": "2018-12-05",
  "sicCodes": "43220",
  "addressLine1": "10 Example Street",
  "locality": "Manchester",
  "postalCode": "M46 0EF",
  "country": "England",
  "companiesHouseUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11712768"
}

With directors, one row per company

{
  "companyName": "RICHARDS SIMMONS HEATING LTD",
  "companyNumber": "11712768",
  "...": "(company fields as above)",
  "directorCount": 3,
  "directors": "RICHARDS, Mark Daniel (director); RICHARDS, Thomas William (director); SIMMONS, Matthew David (director)",
  "primaryDirectorName": "RICHARDS, Mark Daniel",
  "primaryDirectorRole": "director",
  "primaryDirectorAppointedOn": "2018-12-05",
  "primaryDirectorNationality": "British",
  "primaryDirectorDateOfBirthYear": 1987
}

With directors, one row per director (mail-merge ready)

Each director becomes their own row, with full company data duplicated. A company with 3 directors → 3 rows.

{
  "companyName": "RICHARDS SIMMONS HEATING LTD",
  "companyNumber": "11712768",
  "directorName": "RICHARDS, Mark Daniel",
  "directorRole": "director",
  "directorAppointedOn": "2018-12-05",
  "directorNationality": "British",
  "directorDateOfBirthYear": 1987,
  "directorAddressLocality": "Manchester",
  "directorAddressPostalCode": "M46 0EF"
}

---

⚙️ Performance notes

• Companies-only mode: ~30 results/sec. 1,000 companies in ~30 seconds.
• With director enrichment: ~3 results/sec. 1,000 companies (with avg 2 directors each) in ~7 minutes.
• The Companies House API caps any single search at ~10,000 results. For larger jobs, split your search by location or date range.
• Data is pulled live from Companies House — no stale caches.
• Only publicly available information is fetched (everything Companies House publishes openly under the Open Government Licence v3.0).

---

🔗 Works with everything

The output is standard structured data, so you can plug it into:

• CRMs: HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive (via CSV import)
• Outreach tools: Lemlist, Instantly, Apollo (via CSV import)
• Workflow tools: Make, Zapier, n8n (via Apify integration)
• Spreadsheets: Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers (via CSV / Excel export)
• Your own scripts: JSON / XML / API access

---

🛡️ Compliance

• Companies House data is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0 — free for commercial use.
• This Actor calls the official Companies House public API. It does not scrape, bypass any access controls, or access non-public data.
• For outreach using director data, follow UK GDPR rules — particularly the legitimate-interest basis for B2B outreach and the right to unsubscribe.

---

❓ FAQ

---

🛠️ Found a bug or want a feature?

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab, or message me through the Apify platform. Most issues are responded to within a day.

---

Built for UK B2B sales teams, recruiters, market researchers, and anyone who needs to turn "I want to talk to plumbers in Manchester" into a clean CSV in seconds.