UK report /North West /Manchester
DueLead Pulse · Q3 2026

Manchester business borrowing report

13.4% of Manchester's 79,782 trading companies have secured borrowing (10,695 businesses), below the North West at 14.6%.

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

North West
14.6%
428,393 companies · 8th of 12
12.3%17.4%
79.8k
Trading companies
79,782
13.4%
With secured borrowing
-1.2 pts vs region
32.9k
Live charges registered
3.1 per borrower
4.8k
New companies in Q3 2026
still trading at quarter end
4.7%
Late filing accounts
3,737 companies
In brief

What the data says

01Real estate & lettings is the most secured-borrowing sector here: 46% of its 12,104 companies have a lender's charge.
024,843 new companies started in Manchester in Q3 2026, and 3,737 (4.7%) are late filing accounts.
Who borrows

Bigger and older companies borrow more

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

By company size

Dashed line: North West overall

Micro
12.1%
Small
24.1%
Medium & large
61.6%
No accounts yet
3.5%

By company age

Dashed line: North West overall

0-2 years
4.0%
2-5 years
12.9%
5-10 years
17.9%
10-20 years
19.8%
20+ years
43.3%
By sector

Where secured lending is concentrated

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

Real estate & lettings
46.4%
Business support services
8.9%
Professional services
7.1%
Wholesale & distribution
7.0%
Construction & trades
5.9%
Tech, media & telecoms
5.1%
Restaurants, pubs & cafes
4.4%
Retail
3.3%
Share with secured borrowingAll sectors in Manchester (13.4%)
Town reports

Other towns in the North West

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

For commercial finance brokers

Turn this into conversations

DueLead watches every Companies House filing and flags the Manchester 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 →
87Companies in Manchester with a new trigger this week
81Hot leads in Manchester 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.