The UK company data licensing market, in numbers

Compiled by Hamid Gondal for Sleeping Asset. Figures checked 12 November 2026. Updated monthly when new insolvency statistics are published.

Key figures

The numbers below are official statistics unless marked as our estimate. Each links to its source in the notes.

How many UK companies could license their records?

About 130,545 UK businesses had 20 to 249 staff in March 2026², out of 2.79 million VAT or PAYE businesses¹. That band matches what buyers ask for: micro1 looks for 30 or more full-time staff and several years of records¹⁰.

Source: ONS Table 5, UK totals; counts are rounded to the nearest 5 by the ONS². The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade's wider count, which includes businesses with no employees, puts the UK private sector at 5.6 million businesses at the start of 2026, of which 39,220 were medium-sized (50 to 249 employees)³. The two series use different definitions, so do not mix them.

By sector (our estimate). Grouping ONS Table 3 by the sectors AI data buyers name most often gives about 50,930 businesses with 20 to 249 staff, around 39% of the total². Of these, 31,725 are in the 20 to 49 band, which the ONS does not split, so the number clearing a 30-staff minimum is lower. Adding construction (7,645), wholesale (8,120), residential care (5,230) and social work (6,355), and leaving out information services (420), gives about 77,860, the wider grouping used on our sectors hub².

Several of these sectors carry limits on what can be licensed, such as patient data in health and client files in legal services. Sector detail is on our sectors hub, with dedicated pages for logistics and manufacturing.

How many companies enter insolvency each year, by size?

In England and Wales, 23,942 companies entered insolvency in 2025⁵. By business size, 2,520 businesses with 20 to 249 employees entered insolvency that year, up from 2,435 in 2024⁷. Each one has an office-holder with a duty to realise the company's assets.

Source: Insolvency Service Table B3a, our sums of the 20 to 49, 50 to 99 and 100 to 249 bands; counts are rounded, so parts may not add exactly to totals⁷.

Businesses with 20 to 49 employees had the highest insolvency rate of any size band in 2025, at 269 per 10,000⁶. Administration was the most common procedure for businesses with 100 or more employees, at 40% of their insolvencies⁶. Across the UK, the Insolvency Service estimates that businesses entering company insolvency in 2025 employed over 400,000 people⁶.

Monthly company insolvencies, England and Wales (seasonally adjusted)⁵

Totals also include a small number of company voluntary arrangements and receiverships. The October 2026 figures are due on 17 November 2026⁴. Office-holders can read how data fits into a realisation on our insolvency practitioners page.

What have buyers committed and paid?

Buyer commitments are large, but most published figures are company claims, and the one large sale run through a court, Spirit Airlines', still awaits approval^13,14. The table separates what was reported independently from what companies say about themselves.

micro1's newsroom also lists coverage reporting a USD 500 million gross run rate in August 2026⁹. None of these figures tells a UK company what it will be paid. Published ranges by buyer are on our buyers page and valuation page.

How big is the AI training data market?

No one publishes a reliable size for licensing company records, and we found no estimate for that segment. The broad forecasts below include synthetic data, media and annotation services, so they are context, not market size.

• Gartner forecasts worldwide spending on "AI Data" of USD 826 million in 2025, USD 3,126 million in 2026 and USD 6,480 million in 2027, within total AI spending of USD 2.59 trillion in 2026¹⁶.
• MarketsandMarkets projects the AI training dataset market to grow from about USD 2.82 billion in 2024 to USD 9.58 billion by 2029, a compound annual growth rate of 27.7%¹⁷.

Pricing is uncertain too. MIT Technology Review reported that buyers quote wildly different numbers because valuations rest on "research theses", and that no company has yet released tests comparing training on real archives with the alternatives¹².

Market notes

Dated entries, newest first. We add to this list as events happen.

• 12 Nov 2026: First edition, with every figure checked on this date. The October 2026 insolvency figures are due on 17 November⁴, the day set for the Spirit Airlines approval hearing¹⁴.
• 10 Nov 2026: Spirit Airlines' unions withdraw objections after Google agrees to a more rigorous de-identification process and to exclude employee health and medical information; approval hearing set for 17 November^14,15.
• 5 Nov 2026: Business population estimates put the UK private sector at 5.6 million businesses, down 1.8% on 2025³.
• 20 Oct 2026: 1,882 company insolvencies in England and Wales in September 2026, 5% lower than a year earlier⁴.
• 13 Oct 2026: Mode launches BizBuyData.com for businesses licensing records to AI labs¹⁹.
• 9 Oct 2026: micro1 commits USD 1 billion to enterprise data over 12 months⁸.
• 14 Aug 2026: Google wins the Spirit Airlines data auction at USD 10 million¹³.

Method, sources and how to cite

Download the data (CSV)

Business counts come from the ONS Inter-Departmental Business Register snapshot of 13 March 2026 (Tables 3 and 5), which covers VAT or PAYE registered businesses, rounds counts to base 5 and sizes businesses by employment drawn mainly from the Business Register and Employment Survey^1,2. "Staff" on this page means that ONS employment measure. Insolvency counts come from Insolvency Service Tables 1a (company insolvencies, seasonally adjusted) and B3a (business insolvencies by employee band)^5,7; the two measure different things, so their totals differ. Figures marked as our sums or estimates are Sleeping Asset arithmetic from those tables. Insolvency figures cover England and Wales only. Money is shown in the currency each source used, without conversion.

Licence: Sleeping Asset's tables and estimates on this page are licensed under CC BY 4.0. The underlying official statistics are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0^1,4. The UK business and insolvency figures behind these tables are in the CSV file linked from this section, under the same licence.

Journalists and analysts: we are happy to explain the workings. Our contact details, and who we are, are on our about page.