Local Units and Enterprises by Employment Size, Borough

Number local units or enterprises shows the number of businesses by employment size band.

A local units is a place of work factory, a shop, or a branch. An enterprise can be thought of as the overall business, made up of all the individual sites or workplaces (local units). It is defined as the smallest combination of legal units (generally based on VAT and/or PAYE records) that has a certain degree of autonomy within an enterprise group.

SME data can be found in these table. An SME is any business with less than 250 employees. Micro-enterprises have up to 10 employees. Small enterprises have up to 50 employees. Medium-sized enterprises have up to 250 employees.

Figures are provided for VAT and/or PAYE based enterprises and local units. Where an enterprise has several local units, the location of the enterprise is generally the main operating site or the head office.

Since 2008 the publication has been enhanced to include enterprises based on PAYE employers that are not also registered for VAT, extending the scope from the previous VAT based enterprise publication. This is a major change to the scope of the publication. The increase in units is most noticeable in the VAT-exempt industries of finance (J), education (M), health (N) and public administration (L, O and Q).

Analysis for VAT and/or PAYE based enterprises can be found on the ONS website in their reports titled UK Business: Activity, Size and Location using the link below. Where an enterprise has several local units, the location of the enterprise is generally the main operating site or the head office.

Data on size of firms (micro-business, SME, large) for business and employees in London by industry can be found on the ONS website. Trend data by MSOA is also available.