The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system is used by Companies House, HMRC, and the Office for National Statistics to categorise businesses. Every UK company must provide at least one SIC code when registering, and can list up to four codes to describe their activities.
The current system (SIC 2007) contains 731 five-digit codes organised into 21 sections, from Section A (Agriculture) to Section U (Activities of Extraterritorial Organisations). Each code precisely describes a business activity — for example, 62020 is 'Information technology consultancy activities'.
Choosing the correct SIC code is important because it determines how a company is classified in official statistics, affects its filing requirements with HMRC, and can influence the regulatory framework that applies to its operations.
BORSCH.AI tracks SIC codes for all 5.9 million UK registered companies, enabling industry-level analysis, benchmarking, and competitor identification across 731 industry categories.