DueLead Pulse · Q3 2026
Essex business borrowing report
12.9% of Essex's 3,437 trading companies have secured borrowing (443 businesses), above London at 12.3%.
Share of trading companies with secured borrowing
London
12.3%
1,216,366 companies · 12th of 12
12.3%17.4%
3.4k
Trading companies
3,437
12.9%
With secured borrowing
+0.6 pts vs region
1.4k
Live charges registered
3.2 per borrower
249
New companies in Q3 2026
still trading at quarter end
3.1%
Late filing accounts
107 companies
In brief
What the data says
01Real estate & lettings is the most secured-borrowing sector here: 44% of its 484 companies have a lender's charge.
02249 new companies started in Essex in Q3 2026, and 107 (3.1%) are late filing accounts.
Who borrows
Bigger and older companies borrow more
Share of trading companies in Essex with at least one outstanding charge, by size (from the accounts they file) and by age.
By company size
Dashed line: London overall
By company age
Dashed line: London overall
By sector
Where secured lending is concentrated
The largest sectors in Essex, ranked by the share of companies with a lender's charge.
Share with secured borrowingAll sectors in Essex (12.9%)
Town reports
Other towns in London
Every town with at least 2,000 trading companies registered there.
London
816,514 cos11.7%
Harrow
24,761 cos16.2%
Ilford
22,897 cos11.4%
Croydon
13,689 cos12.5%
Romford
13,410 cos10.4%
Wembley
9,240 cos13.7%
Enfield
8,661 cos11.2%
Edgware
8,594 cos13.4%
Hounslow
8,460 cos12.1%
Hayes
8,320 cos12.1%
Barnet
7,607 cos15.4%
Dagenham
7,537 cos6.6%
Uxbridge
7,271 cos15.8%
Bromley
7,081 cos11.4%
Southall
6,371 cos12.9%
Sutton
6,205 cos13.0%
Stanmore
5,991 cos17.0%
Barking
5,752 cos6.9%
Pinner
5,536 cos19.1%
Epsom
5,520 cos13.0%
Grays
5,290 cos9.1%
Hornchurch
5,282 cos13.8%
Orpington
5,271 cos12.5%
Kingston Upon Thames
4,928 cos11.7%
Woodford Green
4,812 cos15.7%
Loughton
4,351 cos18.6%
Ruislip
4,224 cos13.3%
Morden
4,106 cos7.7%
Greenford
3,919 cos13.0%
Waltham Cross
3,894 cos13.6%
Feltham
3,826 cos9.6%
Twickenham
3,675 cos10.3%
Mitcham
3,617 cos9.9%
Richmond
3,528 cos12.2%
Surbiton
3,517 cos11.8%
Weybridge
3,485 cos17.3%
Potters Bar
3,427 cos16.7%
Middlesex
3,413 cos22.9%
Beckenham
3,390 cos12.1%
Ruislip,
3,143 cos2.6%
South Croydon
3,089 cos12.9%
Isleworth
2,889 cos11.9%
Surrey
2,808 cos21.6%
Brentford
2,748 cos11.7%
Wallington
2,717 cos13.2%
Northwood
2,712 cos19.1%
Waltham Abbey
2,638 cos11.8%
Rainham
2,624 cos11.0%
New Malden
2,534 cos11.4%
Staines-Upon-Thames
2,524 cos12.6%
Leatherhead
2,464 cos13.8%
Northolt
2,375 cos9.7%
Ashford
2,356 cos10.2%
West Drayton
2,310 cos10.4%
Egham
2,232 cos21.6%
Thornton Heath
2,206 cos7.7%
Hoddesdon
2,198 cos15.1%
For commercial finance brokers
Turn this into conversations
DueLead watches every Companies House filing and flags the Essex companies showing signs they need finance: new charges, refinance windows, changes of owner, cash squeezes. Scored and delivered every morning.
Start your 7-day free trial →How we built this report
- Trading companies: every active private limited company, LLP and PLC in Companies House's free monthly file of 2026-10-01, leaving out dormant companies, lenders and financial firms, and public bodies. Location is the registered office postcode; towns are the post town.
- Secured borrowing: the company has at least one charge (a mortgage or debenture given to a lender) outstanding or part-satisfied. Unsecured loans, cards and most cash advances don't register a charge, so total borrowing is higher.
- Size comes from the type of accounts last filed: micro-entity, small (total exemption, abridged or small), or medium and large (full, medium or group accounts).
- Late filing: the last accounts filed cover a period that ended more than 21 months before the file date, or a company over 21 months old has filed none.
- New companies were incorporated in the quarter and were still active when the file was taken.
- Lenders: charges registered in the quarter at the companies DueLead tracks, with each chargeholder matched to a register of UK lenders. It's a large sample, not every charge filed, so treat lender shares as indicative.
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.