Sector Analysis

Thousands of small businesses are being held back by a systemic poor payment culture that has developed in the UK over decades, causing at least 50,000 business closures each year according to the FSB.

Good Business Pays constantly watches payment culture in business with an ambition and mission to stamp out bad payment practices and poor payment culture. 

In our work, we have access to a huge amount of data to demonstrate the payment culture in the UK across all large companies that report on the payment practices. 

Each year, we publish the list of the fastest and slowest paying companies in all of the main industry sectors. Here you can easily see the payment culture demonstrated by the biggest companies in 18 industry sectors.

In each chart, you will see the average number of days a company takes to pay their suppliers. The results were taken in February 2023 and for each company, we have also included the same statistic for February 2022 to provide a year-on-year snapshot for each company featured.

A stark illustration of how we view payment culture can be seen in Retail, Automotive & Components and in Manufacturing. In all of these sectors we see the gap opening up further between what good and bad looks like. In these sectors, the worst (slowest) payers (slowest) are getting worse and the best (fastest) payers and getting better. In Media, Sports & Entertainment we see some of the most volatile changes as well as in the Digital/Technology sector. Construction seems to be improving although there is still much work to be done because of the years of bad payment practice in that sector.

We hope you find these useful and would welcome feedback and partnering with industry and trade bodies. We also have a huge amount of data available to offer a paid-for service to provide a full set of industry statistics as well as individual company reports and analysis based on a set of named companies. If you would like to discuss this or receive a quote for Good Business Pays data or research and analysis, please email terry@goodbusinesspays.com.

UK Automotive Industry 2023

Payment Culture in the Automotive & Components Sector Late and slow payment is a persistent challenge faced by small businesses…

UK Banking Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Banking Sector In recent years, banks have made significant improvements in their payment processing times…

UK Chemicals Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Chemicals Sector Late and slow payment is a persistent challenge for small businesses in the…

UK Construction Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Construction Sector Late payments have long been a problem in the construction industry, with small…

UK Insurance Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Insurance Sector The Insurance sector is a critical component of the UK economy, with many…

UK Manufacturing Industry 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Manufacturing Sector In 2023, small businesses in the UK Manufacturing sector continue to face significant…

UK Materials Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Materials Sector In the UK, small businesses in the Materials sector continue to face a…

UK Pharmaceutical Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the Pharmaceutical Sector Small businesses that supply to the Pharmaceutical sector in the UK have been facing…

UK Retail Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Retail Sector In recent years, UK retailers have been under scrutiny for their payment practices…

UK Technology Sector 2023

Payment Culture in the UK Technology Sector Late and slow payment by big UK technology companies to small businesses has…