Companies House holds 4.8 million UK businesses — Apollo holds barely any of them
The UK runs one of the most open business registers in the world. Companies House publishes director names, registered offices, accounts categories, SIC codes, and the People with Significant Control register — all free, all under the Open Government Licence. Around 4.8 million limited companies are active at any time, plus tens of thousands of LLPs and Scottish partnerships. The data is there for anyone who reads it natively.
Apollo, ZoomInfo and Cognism don't. They build from LinkedIn and from US-aggregated lists, which means they cover global brands with UK subsidiaries reasonably well — and the 60-person Sheffield engineering firm, the Bristol software consultancy, the Cambridge medtech startup, badly. AtlasForgeX inverts the source order: Companies House first, web enrichment second.
Free 1-day trial01 //The data is open. The tooling isn't.
Companies House publishes its full company snapshot via a public REST API and as bulk product downloads. Director appointments, accounts filings, mortgage charges, dissolutions — all queryable. The PSC register adds beneficial ownership above 25%. The FCA register adds regulated financial-services entities. HMRC VAT registration confirms trading status. None of this needs a paid data subscription.
What it does need is a tool that knows how to combine these registers, dedupe across them, enrich with the company's actual website, verify the email address that comes back, and present the result in a useable CRM-ready format. That's the gap AtlasForgeX fills.
02 //What AtlasForgeX reads in the UK
// Companies House
Free public register at companieshouse.gov.uk. AtlasForgeX queries the public REST API for company number, registered office, accounts category, SIC codes, officer appointments and resignations.
// PSC register
People with Significant Control — beneficial owners holding > 25% of shares or voting rights. Useful for owner-led SMEs where the PSC is the actual decision-maker rather than a non-executive director.
// Annual accounts
Filed accounts in iXBRL format reveal turnover band, employee numbers (where disclosed), profit, and balance sheet total. The accounts category itself (micro / small / medium / large / group) is a clean size filter.
// English-language website
Live analysis of About, Contact, Team, and Careers pages. Extracts direct phone numbers, role-based and named email addresses, leadership team names and titles.
// Hiring signals
Reed, Indeed UK, Totaljobs, CV-Library, LinkedIn Jobs UK. Active vacancies for sales, marketing, engineering or operations roles signal an investment cycle — a strong intent marker.
// Trade and FCA registers
For regulated sectors AtlasForgeX cross-references the FCA register (financial services), the SRA register (solicitors), and selected trade-body memberships to confirm operating status and specialism.
03 //UK GDPR + PECR: the actual legal position
// Lawful basis for B2B prospecting
UK GDPR (the retained EU GDPR plus the Data Protection Act 2018) recognises legitimate interest under Article 6(1)(f) as a lawful basis for B2B prospecting where the message is relevant to the recipient's professional role and the recipient can object easily. The ICO has confirmed this position in its direct marketing guidance.
PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003) is the layer that actually controls unsolicited B2B email in the UK. Under PECR, corporate subscribers (limited companies, PLCs, LLPs, Scottish partnerships, government bodies) do not require prior opt-in for electronic marketing. They do require a clear opt-out mechanism and an identifiable sender. Sole traders and ordinary partnerships are treated as individual subscribers — they need soft opt-in.
Role-based addresses (info@, sales@, enquiries@) are not personal data under Article 4 UK GDPR. They sit purely under PECR.
AtlasForgeX processes everything locally on the Windows machine. No cloud upload of personal data, no international transfer, no Schrems-equivalent risk in scope.
04 //Three real UK segmentations
// Northern Powerhouse engineering
Directors of medium-accounts manufacturers in Greater Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool with active engineering vacancies.
SIC 28 · Accounts: medium · Region: NW + Yorkshire · Hiring: Reed/Indeed last 60d
// Cambridge–Oxford tech corridor
Software, biotech and deep-tech limited companies in the East of England with growing employee counts across the last two filings.
SIC 62 / 72 · Region: East England · Employee growth YoY > 20%
// Scottish professional services
Edinburgh and Glasgow consultancies and law firms, small-to-medium accounts, with recent hiring activity.
SIC 69 / 70 · Scotland · Accounts: small or medium · Hiring active