DueLead Pulse · Q3 2026
South East business borrowing report
13.7% of the South East's 544,548 trading companies have secured borrowing (74,723 businesses), below the UK at 14.0%.
Share of trading companies with secured borrowing
South East
13.7%
544,548 companies · 10th of 12
12.3%17.4%
544.5k
Trading companies
544,548
13.7%
With secured borrowing
-0.3 pts vs UK
184.9k
Live charges registered
2.5 per borrower
19.1k
New companies in Q3 2026
still trading at quarter end
3.7%
Late filing accounts
20,035 companies
In brief
What the data says
01The South East ranks 10th 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 65,111 companies have a lender's charge.
0319,107 new companies started in the South East in Q3 2026, and 20,035 (3.7%) are late filing accounts.
Who borrows
Bigger and older companies borrow more
Share of trading companies in the South East with at least one outstanding charge, by size (from the accounts they file) and by age.
By company size
Dashed line: UK overall
By company age
Dashed line: UK overall
By sector
Where secured lending is concentrated
The largest sectors in the South East, ranked by the share of companies with a lender's charge.
Share with secured borrowingAll sectors in the South East (13.7%)
Who's lending
New charges this quarter, by lender
515 charges registered in Q3 2026 at the companies DueLead tracks in the South East. Security agents for syndicated and private equity debt are left out.
Lender type
Share of new charges
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 |
73 | |
| 2 | O | OSB (Kent Reliance) Property, bridging & buy-to-let |
24 | |
| 3 |  |
The Mortgage Works Property, bridging & buy-to-let |
22 | |
| 4 |  |
Landbay Property, bridging & buy-to-let |
22 | |
| 5 | K | Kensington Mortgages Property, bridging & buy-to-let |
21 | |
| 6 |  |
Fleet Mortgages Property, bridging & buy-to-let |
21 | |
| 7 |  |
Aldermore Bank Specialist & alternative lenders |
18 | |
| 8 |  |
Paragon Bank Specialist & alternative lenders |
15 | |
| 9 |  |
HSBC UK Banks |
13 | |
| 10 |  |
Vida Homeloans Property, bridging & buy-to-let |
13 |
Town reports
Explore the South East by town
Every town with at least 2,000 trading companies registered there.
Milton Keynes
20,428 cos13.1%
Reading
19,549 cos14.7%
Southampton
18,668 cos13.2%
Slough
14,646 cos12.1%
Brighton
13,047 cos12.2%
Bedford
12,203 cos12.6%
Maidstone
9,303 cos12.4%
Oxford
8,554 cos11.8%
High Wycombe
8,502 cos12.3%
Fareham
8,187 cos12.2%
Portsmouth
7,775 cos14.8%
Dartford
7,656 cos15.0%
Aylesbury
7,491 cos10.6%
Ashford
7,301 cos14.9%
Worthing
7,233 cos14.6%
Hove
6,873 cos14.5%
Guildford
6,387 cos15.1%
Eastbourne
6,227 cos14.5%
Hemel Hempstead
6,192 cos12.8%
Gravesend
6,152 cos11.2%
Woking
6,132 cos12.8%
Tunbridge Wells
6,021 cos12.0%
Waterlooville
5,916 cos11.2%
Maidenhead
5,848 cos12.8%
Chatham
5,749 cos12.0%
Crawley
5,580 cos12.3%
Basingstoke
5,522 cos13.3%
Chichester
5,370 cos14.7%
Rochester
5,342 cos13.4%
Horsham
5,157 cos12.4%
Sevenoaks
4,977 cos13.4%
Canterbury
4,740 cos14.3%
Winchester
4,712 cos14.3%
Eastleigh
4,697 cos16.1%
Wokingham
4,601 cos13.8%
Tonbridge
4,534 cos12.5%
Sidcup
4,284 cos12.4%
Banbury
4,283 cos14.3%
Camberley
4,277 cos13.8%
Farnham
4,217 cos13.4%
Newbury
3,841 cos14.7%
Witney
3,784 cos16.2%
Bracknell
3,707 cos11.4%
Haywards Heath
3,665 cos11.5%
Gillingham
3,619 cos11.1%
Bicester
3,460 cos16.9%
Windsor
3,442 cos16.1%
Sittingbourne
3,415 cos13.4%
Farnborough
2,941 cos12.5%
Abingdon
2,913 cos16.0%
Kent
2,866 cos22.9%
Redhill
2,813 cos13.2%
Gerrards Cross
2,647 cos18.7%
Reigate
2,645 cos14.9%
Folkestone
2,517 cos12.2%
Godalming
2,443 cos16.1%
Chesham
2,432 cos13.7%
Beaconsfield
2,417 cos21.1%
Aldershot
2,401 cos11.6%
Dorking
2,386 cos11.9%
Ramsgate
2,375 cos12.3%
Bognor Regis
2,339 cos10.9%
Romsey
2,325 cos13.2%
Erith
2,291 cos11.3%
Hailsham
2,287 cos16.6%
Bexleyheath
2,256 cos14.2%
Alton
2,164 cos16.6%
Margate
2,150 cos13.7%
Southsea
2,133 cos9.9%
Amersham
2,085 cos13.8%
East Grinstead
2,070 cos11.5%
Marlow
2,055 cos16.3%
Bexley
2,044 cos15.5%
Berkhamsted
2,009 cos13.8%
For commercial finance brokers
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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.