The internet quotes wildly different failure rates because it mixes up two different measurements. Here are both, reconciled: the official ONS survival statistics, and what the Companies House register itself shows when you track real cohorts month by month · including Mode's own sector analysis across marketing and six trades.
of UK businesses born in 2023 survived their first year
ONS Business Demography 2024of the 2019 cohort survived to five years · fewer than 4 in 10
ONS Business Demography 2024of marketing companies incorporated January 2025 dissolved within 18 months
Companies House, analysed by Mode, July 202618-month mortality across six trades Mode analysed, from electricians (best) to hair & beauty (worst)
Companies House, analysed by Mode, July 2026UK company dissolutions in the year to March 2025, a record
Companies House register activities, 2025host roughly a fifth of all new marketing companies · much of the churn is paper, not failed trading
Companies House, analysed by Mode, July 2026The ONS tracks businesses with real economic activity, and its picture is steadier: 93.4% make year one, roughly two-thirds make year two, and 38.4% reach five years. The register tells a rawer story because it counts every incorporation, including the shells, the side-projects and the never-started: when Mode tracked all 29,609 marketing companies incorporated since January 2025, the January cohort was 27% dissolved within 18 months, and six trades ran between 17% and 24%. Most of those deaths are strike-offs for never filing anything · the business idea ended before the business did.
The practical reading for anyone choosing suppliers, premises or partners: check the specific company, not the average. A business that files on time, at a real address, with visible activity, has already separated itself from the churn. That check takes two minutes on the public register and, increasingly, AI assistants run it for you when asked whether a company is legitimate.
Officially, 93.4% of UK businesses born in 2023 survived their first year and 38.4% of the 2019 cohort reached five years (ONS Business Demography 2024). But sector and register data run harsher: Mode’s Companies House research found 27% of marketing companies incorporated in January 2025 dissolved within 18 months, and 17-24% across six trades analysed.
ONS counts businesses with real economic activity (VAT/PAYE registered), while the Companies House register includes every incorporation, including shells and abandoned side-projects that never trade. Register mortality is therefore higher and faster: most early dissolutions are strike-offs for never filing, not trading businesses collapsing.
Of six sectors Mode analysed on the register (July 2026), hair and beauty had the highest 18-month mortality of the January 2025 intake at 24%, with plumbing and cafes around 22%, vehicle care 21%, joinery 19%, and electrical installation the most resilient at 16.6%.
Sources: ONS Business Demography UK 2024 (published Nov 2025) · Companies House register activities FYE 2025 · Mode Marketing register research, July 2026 (method disclosed in the linked studies). Refreshed when the September 2026 first-accounts wave lands.
Mode publishes this research because we compete in it: a registered, on-time-filing UK company (no. 16231339) whose whole model · fixed scope, published prices, no headcount to carry · is designed around the economics that kill new firms. See the full market research for the bigger picture.
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