Every limited company in the UK has to tell Companies House when something important changes: a new director, new shares, a new name, its yearly accounts. All of it is public, and all of it is free to search. For a freelancer or a small studio looking for new clients, that makes it one of the most useful free tools in the country, and very few creatives use it.
Here is how to use it to spot brands that are about to need creative work, step by step.
What Companies House can tell you
The register covers limited companies and LLPs. For each one you can see its registered address, its directors, what it says it does, and its filing history: a dated list of every form it has sent in. That filing history is where the signals are.
Four filings that often mean new creative work
1. A brand-new company in your sector and area
New businesses need almost everything: a logo, a website, photos, launch content. The advanced company search lets you filter by incorporation date, location and what the business does (its SIC code). Search for companies set up in the last month, near you, in the sectors you like working with.
A few SIC codes creatives find useful:
- 47910: retail sale via mail order or the internet (online shops)
- 11050: manufacture of beer (breweries)
- 11010: distilling and blending of spirits (gin and whisky makers)
- 20420: manufacture of perfumes and toilet preparations (beauty and skincare)
- 56101: licensed restaurants
Be picky. Plenty of new companies are holding companies, side projects or never trade. Before you pitch, check there is a real business behind the name: a website, an Instagram account, a shop opening date.
2. A new director (form AP01)
Companies must tell Companies House within 14 days when a director joins. A new director often means a change of direction, new investors or a growth plan. The register won't tell you what their job is, so look them up on LinkedIn. A new Marketing or Brand Director is the strongest version of this signal: they usually review who the brand works with in their first months.
3. New shares issued (form SH01)
When a company issues new shares it files a return of allotment, usually within a month. That is often the paper trail of an investment round, and it can appear before or without any announcement. Not every SH01 is a big raise (founders move shares around too), so check the news and the company's LinkedIn before reading too much into it. If there is money behind it, growth plans and marketing usually follow.
4. A change of name (form NM01)
A company changing its registered name is often part of a rebrand. Sometimes the official name changes before the new identity is public. A new name means new everything: packaging, signage, website, social, photography. Pitch the rollout, because the identity itself may already be with a studio.
Let Companies House email you
Checking filing histories by hand gets old quickly. Companies House has a free Follow service: create an account, open any company and click Follow, and you get an email when that company files something new. Follow the twenty or thirty brands you would most like to work with and let the alerts come to you.
If you're technical, Companies House also has a free API. You register for a key and can then search and watch companies with your own scripts or a spreadsheet tool.
A 20-minute weekly routine
- Monday: run your saved advanced search for new companies in your area and sectors. Note any that look real.
- Check your Follow emails for new directors, share issues and name changes at the brands on your list.
- For anything interesting, check the website, LinkedIn and news to see what is actually happening.
- Pitch one or two, tied to the specific change, using the free pitch timing tool to get the timing right.
What Companies House can't tell you
It only covers companies. Sole traders and ordinary partnerships aren't on it, and many small cafés, shops and studios trade that way. Filings also arrive after the decision has been made, and they say nothing about budgets, agencies or what the brand is planning. Treat a filing as a reason to look closer, then read the other signals: job ads, ad activity and news.
That combination is what BrandBnk does for you across 1,000+ UK brands. But the method above works by hand, it is free, and it is a better way to find clients than waiting for briefs to be posted.