UK report /East of England
DueLead Pulse · Q3 2026

East of England business borrowing report

13.6% of the East of England's 355,968 trading companies have secured borrowing (48,571 businesses), below the UK at 14.0%.

Covers 2026-07-01 to 2026-09-30 · Companies House file of 2026-10-01 · Free to cite with a link

Share of trading companies with secured borrowing

East of England
13.6%
355,968 companies · 11th of 12
12.3%17.4%
356k
Trading companies
355,968
13.6%
With secured borrowing
-0.4 pts vs UK
119.3k
Live charges registered
2.5 per borrower
14.6k
New companies in Q3 2026
still trading at quarter end
3.5%
Late filing accounts
12,320 companies
In brief

What the data says

01The East of England ranks 11th of 12 UK regions for the share of companies borrowing against their assets.
02Real estate & lettings is the most secured-borrowing sector here: 46% of its 42,766 companies have a lender's charge.
0314,639 new companies started in the East of England in Q3 2026, and 12,320 (3.5%) are late filing accounts.
Who borrows

Bigger and older companies borrow more

Share of trading companies in the East of England with at least one outstanding charge, by size (from the accounts they file) and by age.

By company size

Dashed line: UK overall

Micro
9.8%
Small
23.2%
Medium & large
57.6%
No accounts yet
3.4%

By company age

Dashed line: UK overall

0-2 years
3.8%
2-5 years
10.6%
5-10 years
14.8%
10-20 years
14.9%
20+ years
36.1%
By sector

Where secured lending is concentrated

The largest sectors in the East of England, ranked by the share of companies with a lender's charge.

Real estate & lettings
45.7%
Holding companies
18.3%
Manufacturing
17.7%
Wholesale & distribution
14.9%
Motor trade
10.5%
Business support services
8.3%
Construction & trades
7.9%
Haulage & logistics
7.6%
Retail
7.2%
Restaurants, pubs & cafes
6.1%
Personal services
6.1%
Healthcare & dental
5.8%
Professional services
5.0%
Tech, media & telecoms
3.4%
Share with secured borrowingAll sectors in the East of England (13.6%)
Who's lending

New charges this quarter, by lender

261 charges registered in Q3 2026 at the companies DueLead tracks in the East of England. Security agents for syndicated and private equity debt are left out.

Lender type

Share of new charges

Banks
15%
Specialist & alternative lenders
21%
Property, bridging & buy-to-let
51%
Asset finance
2%
Invoice finance
2%
Cash advance & revenue-based
0%
Other & private lenders
10%

Counts of charges registered, not amounts lent. "Other & private" is mostly individuals, family trusts and one-off funding companies.

Most active lenders

By new charges registered in Q3 2026

1 Together
Property, bridging & buy-to-let
35
2 Aldermore Bank
Specialist & alternative lenders
29
3 Fleet Mortgages
Property, bridging & buy-to-let
20
4 Lloyds Bank
Banks
17
5 The Mortgage Works
Property, bridging & buy-to-let
14
6 K Kensington Mortgages
Property, bridging & buy-to-let
10
7 Vida Homeloans
Property, bridging & buy-to-let
10
8 O OSB (Kent Reliance)
Property, bridging & buy-to-let
7
9 HSBC UK
Banks
7
10 Paragon Bank
Specialist & alternative lenders
6
Town reports

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Every town with at least 2,000 trading companies registered there.

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274Companies in the East of England with a new trigger this week
254Hot leads in the East of England right now
How we built this report

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. You're welcome to quote and chart these figures with a link to this page.