UK report /East of England /Colchester
DueLead Pulse · Q3 2026

Colchester business borrowing report

13.6% of Colchester's 12,565 trading companies have secured borrowing (1,715 businesses), above the East of England at 13.6%.

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%
12.6k
Trading companies
12,565
13.6%
With secured borrowing
+0.0 pts vs region
4k
Live charges registered
2.3 per borrower
468
New companies in Q3 2026
still trading at quarter end
3.7%
Late filing accounts
468 companies
In brief

What the data says

01Real estate & lettings is the most secured-borrowing sector here: 44% of its 1,474 companies have a lender's charge.
02468 new companies started in Colchester in Q3 2026, and 468 (3.7%) are late filing accounts.
Who borrows

Bigger and older companies borrow more

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

By company size

Dashed line: East of England overall

Micro
9.2%
Small
22.2%
Medium & large
62.0%
No accounts yet
3.4%

By company age

Dashed line: East of England overall

0-2 years
4.0%
2-5 years
10.1%
5-10 years
14.7%
10-20 years
14.5%
20+ years
35.3%
By sector

Where secured lending is concentrated

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

Real estate & lettings
43.8%
Business support services
11.4%
Construction & trades
7.6%
Retail
7.4%
Personal services
6.3%
Professional services
5.0%
Healthcare & dental
4.6%
Tech, media & telecoms
3.7%
Share with secured borrowingAll sectors in Colchester (13.6%)
Town reports

Other towns in the East of England

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

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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.