BATS shares are traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in addition to the LSE. Ben & Jerry’s, Dove, Knorr, Lynx (Axe), Hellman’s, and Wall’s are among its best-known brands. AstraZeneca has interests in several medical treatment categories, including the cardiovascular, brain cancer, respiratory, and gastrointestinal fields. To facilitate your browsing in this long list, here are quick links to go directly to the details of any of the top 30 UK companies. The real-time quotation of the FTSE 100 index can be followed with convenient graphical tools from a number of sources, including the London Stock Exchange, Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, etc.
As Asian markets start to rise again, this could help HSBC to recover in the wake of the pandemic. Throughout 2020, the company grew underlying sales by 1.9% despite the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had an effect on its beauty and grooming sectors, as well as food products that were impacted forex basics by channel closures. Some of Unilever’s core markets, such as China and India, returned to growth in the second quarter after lockdown restrictions were eased, boosting emerging markets by 1.2%. Unilever Plc is a leading consumer staple with global operations but headquarters in the UK.
Companies in key stock indices
We have conducted extensive research and analysis on over multiple data points on UK Biggest Companies to present you with a comprehensive guide that can help you find the most suitable UK Biggest Companies. Below we shortlist what we think are the best UK Biggest Companies Investment Platforms after careful consideration and evaluation. We hope this list will assist you in making an informed decision when researching UK Biggest Companies. GlaxoSmithKline is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical organisations set up in 2000 from the merger of four other medical services organisations. Self-depicted as a science-driven organisation, GSK is engaged in the research, development and production of medicines and vaccines. The organisation centres on HIV, respiratory sicknesses, oncology and immunology.
Get tight spreads, no hidden fees, access to 12,000 instruments and more. 2020 was a vital year for the company, as AstraZeneca managed to develop and distribute a vaccine to counteract the effects of Covid-19, in a joint partnership with Oxford University. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was approved and administered at the start of 2021, with an efficiency of 81.3% after the second dose. In its annual report, the company announced an increase of 9% in revenue for 2020. Glencore Energy UK is a division of Glencore which isn’t a British company. Nevertheless, Glencore Energy UK is and the company had sales of £38.6 billion in 2021 according to Global Database.
Top 10 largest UK companies by market cap
The UK’s biggest company by market cap is AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company best known for its role in developing the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. The United Kingdom – and its benchmark stock index, the FTSE 100 – is home to some world-leading blue-chip https://bigbostrade.com/ businesses. National Grid is the UK’s largest energy business and is in charge of running the country’s power and gas networks. Like the other big companies discussed here, BP is traded on multiple exchanges, including the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
To give you more perspective on the largest UK-based companies employing the most people, details about the thirty largest public companies that hire the largest number of workers globally have been listed hereafter. Each company is detailed with presentations of its sector, industry, its number of total, worldwide, full-time employees, activities, market capitalization, a direct link to its website, logo, and stock symbol. In terms of market capitalisation, it currently sits below the top 40 companies listed on the LSE. This represented a sharp increase in sales from the previous year, although profits fell that year, further reducing the company’s profit margin. Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.
- The National Grid is the UK’s biggest utility company, responsible for operating the electricity and gas network across the country.
- GlaxoSmithKline is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, established in 2000 from the merger of four other healthcare businesses.
- Originally two separate companies founded in Germany and the US over a century ago, Linde is a chemical company formed by the merger of these two companies in 2018.
- They distribute electricity to around 3.8 million locations in Scotland and southern England and manage high voltage transmission systems in northern Scotland.
It has joint head offices in both London and Melbourne and is dual-listed on the LSE and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Originally called the Anglo-Persian Oil Company – and then British Petroleum – the business today simply goes by BP and is the fourth-largest oil company in the world by revenue (after ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies). Antofagasta PLC is a multinational copper mining company that is also involved in transport. The beating heart of the UK’s economy lies not far from these 30 most valuable UK companies of 2023. Learning about these business giants will bring a treasure of information with valuable insights into the health of various sectors, the direction of the UK economy, and potential future trends.
The presence of Tesco and Sainsbury’s in the top 10 illustrates the weight of retail in employment, even though multiple other British industries do weigh heavily on global work. Many large industries need a lot of unskilled employees, generating only a little income per worker, while some other industries may be smaller but favor the growth of larger companies with vast numbers of skilled employees. Thus certain industries are well-represented in the top employers even though the companies themselves are not worth as much as other members of this list in terms of market capitalization.
BP (LSE: BP)
This article lists the largest companies in the United Kingdom in terms of their revenue, net profit and total assets, according to the Aussie business magazines Fortune, Forbes and Global Database. Anglo American PLC is a mining company based in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Founded in 1917, Anglo American is the world’s largest producer of platinum, and a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, iron ore, and metallurgical and thermal coal. British American Tobacco PLC, also known as BAT, is a multinational cigarette and tobacco manufacturing company. Formed in 1902, BAT is now the world’s second-largest tobacco producer with multiple international brands such as Lucky Strike, Dunhill, Pall Mall, Rothmans International, Winfield, and a large array of local brands. Among the world’s largest private worldwide employers, some giant British companies hire hundreds of thousands of employees to conduct business.
- Marks and Spencer Group PLC, often abbreviated as M&S, is a leading retailer that specializes in selling clothing, home products, and luxury food products mostly of its own label.
- Along with these successes, GSK has also been involved in controversy, mainly in 2012 when they pled guilty to multiple charges about their practices and drugs that led to them paying a $3 billion settlement.
- WPP PLC is a multinational company providing communication, experience commerce, and technology services.
- It is the largest bank not only in the UK but in Europe, with €2.681 trillion of assets as of 2022.
They rely upon local and remote employees to create, produce and deliver their products and services in the UK and around the world. Sound risk and money management are vital to financial market navigation with UK Biggest Companies. However, selecting the best broker to access the markets is a critical step that traders should not overlook as they embark on trading live financial markets with UK Biggest Companies. They produce many different types of consumer products, ranging from beauty products and personal care items to food, condiments and many more. These products are sold worldwide in over 190 countries and are differentiated by the 400-plus brands that Unilever owns.
HSBC
Unilever has been a household brand since 1929, when it was founded through the merger of soap maker Lever Brothers and margarine company Margarine Unie. It is a multi-layered business with more than 400 brands, including food, home and personal care products. Alternatively, you can buy and take ownership of these stocks via a share dealing account. This makes you eligible for voting rights and to receive dividends if the company grants them. It is possible to make money trading, but it comes with many risks and extra costs that must be taken into consideration. Consult our section on ‘what else do you need to know’ before opening a potentially risky trade.
Persimmon has acquired several companies over the years, including Beazer Homes and Westbury. BATS has also entered the non-combustible smoking sector with devices like Vype, Vuse, and Glo. It has even made steps to expand into the legal marijuana market, acquiring a 20% share in OrganiGram, a Canadian manufacturer, in 2021. Although these UK firms are not on the scale of some US behemoths, there are plenty of UK companies that will be familiar to traders around the world.
It has created several medicines listed as essential medicines by the World Health Organisation, including amoxicillin, pyrimethamine and mercaptopurine. RIO is the eighth-biggest company in the UK by market cap, but the first by profit – earning $21 billion in 2022 from revenues of $63 billion. The UK’s most valuable bank by market cap – and Europe’s biggest bank by assets under management – is HSBC. Originally founded in Hong Kong (and called the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), since 1991 HSBC has been based in London. AZN has been a leading company in the pharma sector for a long time, but didn’t become the UK’s biggest company until its involvement in the Covid-19 vaccine. Its share price took a hit in July 2023 due to setback in the product of a lung cancer drug, but not enough to see it lose the top spot.
GSK is a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company headquartered in London, formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline. It was higher among the top UK companies until a demerger of its consumer healthcare division in July 2022 (into a whole new company, Haleon) saw its market cap fall. One of the world’s biggest oil and gas providers, Shell has long been one of the most-valuable companies on the London Stock Exchange.
London Stock Exchange Group plc
Among the supermajors, it is second only to ExxonMobil in terms of revenue.
HSBC aligns its business into three specific groups – wealth and personal banking, commercial banking, and global banking and markets. In each of these areas, it serves different types of customers, ranging in scale and background, from average individuals to large companies. HSBC has multiple large shareholders, many of which are global investment institutions, such as J.P. Morgan Securities, Renaissance Technologies, and Dimensional Fund Advisors. Headquartered in London, it mostly services markets in Africa and Asia, offering life and health insurance, as well as asset management.
In addition to the online educational resources available, traders should consider the platform offered by UK Biggest Companies to ensure a successful trading experience. The organisation was established in 1999 by the merger of two organisations that originated as far back as 1814. Reckitt owns various notable brands, like Dettol, Calgon, Nurofen, and Air Wick. It manufactures products such as deodorisers, sanitisers, hair creams, neutralisers, and cleaning supplies. The organisation manufactures and sells cigarettes, tobacco and other nicotine-related items. English American Tobacco was established in 1902 and is settled in London.
AstraZeneca focuses on areas of healthcare such as cancer research, respiratory and autoimmune diseases, and neuroscience. It has secondary listings on other exchanges including the NASDAQ OMX, Bombay Stock Exchange NASDAQ in New York. Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
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and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Tesco is currently in the top 30 of the UK’s largest companies in terms of market capitalisation. It’s £84 billion in sales converted to a profit of £2 billion in 2022, ranking the business 15th in terms of the UK’s largest corporations by the bottom line. It owns over 400 brands, many of which are household names, such as Dove, Lipton, Magnum, Vaseline, Walls, Marmite and PG Tips.
The price of crude oil per barrel plummeted in March 2020, which affected share prices of oil stocks. The company reported making a profit in only one sector in 2020 for its chemical sales business. As APAC markets account for more than 35% of total revenues, Royal Dutch Shell may be looking towards a more hopeful year, due to the re-opening of the markets.
In particular, its brands produce consumer goods relating to food, beverages, personal care, beauty, cleaning, healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Unilever has three listings on the London Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and Euronext Amsterdam. As well as making up part of the FTSE 100, it is also a constituent of the AEX index in Amsterdam and the Euro Stoxx 50. Marks and Spencer Group PLC, often abbreviated as M&S, is a leading retailer that specializes in selling clothing, home products, and luxury food products mostly of its own label. Founded in 1884, M&S now operates more than 900 stores primarily in the UK and Ireland.
Calculated from the stocks of the 100 largest corporations by market capitalization listed on the LSE, the FTSE is a capitalization-weighted index where larger companies are weighted more heavily in the index. It represents around 70% of the total market capitalization of the companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. To ease the understanding of the evolution of the British stock market and the broader UK economy, the stocks of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange are aggregated in the FTSE 100 index. Meaning “Financial Time Stock Exchange 100”, and often more simply referred to as FTSE, the FTSE 100 index is widely recognized as the benchmark index of the British stock market.
Check our data platform for the latest ranking of UK companies and FTSE 100 companies. Try a risk-free trade in your demo account, and see whether you’re on to something. Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca was formed in 1999 after the merger between Astra AB and Zeneca Group. Since then, it has remained one of the largest pharma companies in the world and it was at the forefront of the drive to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.