Enrich UK company lists properly
A list of company names in a spreadsheet is not a lead list. It becomes one when every row carries a status, an address, a SIC code you can read, the people who run it and the date its accounts are due. Below is how I build that from the official Companies House register, and the hosted Actor that does it for you with your own free key.
The questionHow do I automatically enrich a list of UK companies with Companies House data?
How the working version is put together
Take names, numbers or a search
Paste company numbers and they are looked up directly. Paste names and each is searched on the register. Or skip the list and search by keyword, SIC code and postcode prefix, so a query like bakeries in NW9 returns every active bakery registered there. Dissolved companies are excluded unless you ask for them, because a dead company in a lead list wastes somebody's afternoon.
Match honestly or not at all
A name is only accepted when the register's top hit is the same name, allowing for Ltd against Limited and Plc against Public Limited Company. Anything looser comes back as unmatched with the three closest candidates and their numbers, so a person decides. A tool that silently turns Acme into Acme Widgets Limited will poison a list faster than you can read it.
Read the profile
Status and company type come first, then the incorporation date and jurisdiction. The SIC codes arrive with a plain-English label for the first one, because 10710 means nothing to a salesperson and Manufacture of bread means everything. The registered office is flattened into one line with its parts kept beside it. Then the accounts: the last date they were made up to and the next date they are due, the confirmation statement dates, and flags for charges and insolvency history. All from the official API, all attributable.
Add the people, if you want them
Active officers with role, appointment date, nationality and occupation. Persons with significant control by name. The latest five filings with their date and type. Each is a switch, because a row you do not need is a row you pay for.
Respect the register
Companies House allows 600 requests per five minutes on a free key. The Actor paces itself under that and backs off when told to, so a long list finishes rather than getting the key throttled. One charge per company returned; unmatched rows are never charged.
Why Companies House and not a data vendor
Because it is the register. A vendor's record of a UK company is a copy of this one, sometimes months old, resold with a licence attached. Reading the source costs nothing but a free key and gives you the same fields the vendor started from, dated to the day.
The trade-off is honest: the register knows nothing about websites, email addresses or headcount. It knows who is registered, where, doing what, run by whom, and whether the accounts are late. That is the skeleton of a lead list. Contact details are a separate job, and I would rather you knew that before you started than after.
What I tested it on
I ran it on my own list before publishing. Greggs resolved to Greggs plc, Monzo Bank to Monzo Bank Limited, The Dorchester to The Dorchester Limited, and a made-up widgets company came back unmatched with three real candidates instead of a guess. A search for bakeries in NW9 with the bakery SIC code returned two active companies, both genuinely registered in NW9, after the dissolved ones were filtered out.
Those are counts, not claims. Run it once with no key and it returns three demo rows so you can see the shape of the output before you create a key.
What it costs to run
The key is free from Companies House and takes two minutes to create. The Actor charges one event per company enriched and nothing for unmatched rows. There are no proxies and no browser behind it, so the platform cost on top is small.
The cost that matters is the one after: somebody still has to decide what to do with a list of four hundred active bakeries. If you run n8n, my free templates take a list like this and turn it into scoring, outreach drafts and follow-ups without another tool in the chain.
When I would tell you not to bother
If you need email addresses and phone numbers, this is only the first half. The register does not hold them and neither does the Actor. Budget for enrichment or a verification step before you count the list as workable.
If your list is twenty companies, look them up by hand on the register. The Actor earns its keep at two hundred and up, or when the same list needs refreshing every month.
What lands on your desk
- One clean row per company from the official register, with a plain-English SIC label
- Officers, persons with significant control and latest filings as optional columns
- Honest matching: exact or unmatched with candidates, never a guess
- Search by keyword, SIC code and postcode prefix, active companies by default
- If you want it wired into your CRM and outreach, that is the work I do
Open the proof
Published case studies of systems that are running. Each links to the thing itself.
The hosted Actor on Apify ↗Get a free Companies House API key ↗My n8n creator profile ↗
Questions this page answers
- What can I search by?
- I take company numbers and look them up directly, or take names and search them on the register. You can also search by keyword, SIC code and postcode prefix. Dissolved companies are excluded from the results unless you ask to include them.
- How do you avoid matching the wrong company?
- A name only gets accepted when the register's top hit is the same name. Anything looser comes back unmatched with the three closest candidates and their numbers, so a person decides.
- What fields does it return?
- Status, company type and SIC codes with a plain-English label; the registered office; and the accounts and confirmation statement dates. Officers, persons with significant control and the latest five filings are optional extras.
- What's the running cost of the Actor?
- The Companies House key is free and takes two minutes to create. The Actor charges one event per company enriched and nothing for the ones it can't match.
- Does it give me email addresses?
- The register doesn't hold email addresses. It only holds who is registered and where, plus whether the accounts are late.
Want this built and handed over working?
One line is enough to start. You get an honest answer on fit, and a number rather than a discovery call.
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