More than 1,000 companies were registered in Ealing last year in trades including cafés, takeaways, hairdressing and convenience stores, putting the borough among the top 10 local authorities in the country.
Figures compiled by business data company Salenovo from Companies House records show 1,028 registrations across 12 high street trades in 2025, up from 618 in 2019. Ealing ranked 10th out of 361 local authorities for the number of registrations in these trades.
Almost half the increase came from the Ealing Southall parliamentary constituency, where registrations more than doubled from 162 to 356.
Convenience store registrations in the constituency went from 27 to 72, takeaways from 31 to 66, cafés from 24 to 54 and car repair businesses from 10 to 31.
A postcode breakdown supplied to EALING.NEWS shows that Southall’s UB1 district had 162 registrations last year, compared with 76 in 2019. In UB2, covering Southall and Norwood Green, the number almost tripled from 50 to 148.
Acton’s W3 postcode district recorded 164 registrations, up from 129, including more cafés, takeaways and hair and beauty businesses. Greenford’s UB6 had 140, compared with 94 in 2019, with increases in education, health services and takeaways.
In Ealing Broadway’s W5 postcode district, the number rose from 88 to 100. West Ealing recorded 73 registrations against 44 in 2019, Northolt 82 against 51 and Hanwell 49 against 39.
Across the borough, takeaways accounted for 181 registrations last year, up from 114 in 2019. Hair and beauty businesses increased from 79 to 138, convenience stores from 71 to 131 and cafés and unlicensed restaurants from 99 to 150.
Roofing registrations went from five to 45, while sports facilities were the only one of the 12 trades to record a fall, from nine to five.
The figures cover companies registered at their own addresses rather than confirmed business premises. They do not establish whether a company has begun trading, and some postcode districts extend beyond the borough boundary.
Salenovo also examined how many newly registered companies remained on the Companies House register after three years.
Of 10,759 companies registered at their own addresses in Ealing between January 2022 and September 2023, 47.4% were still on the register at three years old, compared with 51.4% across the UK.
The proportion was 44.6% in Ealing Southall, 47.3% in Ealing North and 49.5% in Ealing Central and Acton.
Retail companies had some of the lowest rates, with between 34% and 37% still registered after three years. For property companies, the figure was between 67% and 71%.
A company remaining on the register is not necessarily trading, while one that has been removed has not necessarily failed.
Salenovo co-founder Matt Vallis told EALING.NEWS: “Ealing is one of the busiest places in the country to start a high street business. Only nine council areas saw more new takeaways, salons, cafés and corner shops set up in 2025, and nearly half the borough’s rise came from Ealing Southall, where the number more than doubled, from 162 in 2019 to 356.
“The harder question is how many will last. Of the companies formed in the borough in 2022 and 2023, just under half were still going three years on, a little below the UK as a whole. These figures show where people are starting businesses. The next few years will show which of them stick.”
