UK Small Business Website Health Report
Half of the 4,324 UK small business websites we have audited to August 2026 have no privacy policy, and 43.5% carry no schema markup at all.
Original research by Get Your Website Seen
We audit UK small business websites every week as part of how we work. Over time the data has added up, and the picture it paints is worth sharing. This page summarises what we have found across 4,324 audits carried out between 27 January and 28 August 2026.
Every number on this page comes from a real website belonging to a real UK small business. Nothing here is estimated, modelled or borrowed from somebody else’s study.
The Headlines
Across 4,324 UK small business websites audited between January and August 2026 and spanning 84 industries, the average SEO score was 85.5 out of 100 and the average accessibility score 77.8 out of 100.
GDPR and legal compliance
Half the sites we have audited have basic legal compliance gaps. Under UK data protection law, any website collecting personal information — and a contact form or analytics counts — needs a privacy notice and a way for visitors to manage cookies.
Of 4,324 UK small business websites audited between January and August 2026, 50.9% had no privacy policy and 49.7% had no cookie consent mechanism. A further 6.1% had no SSL certificate and 4.6% had a certificate close to expiry.
The Information Commissioner’s Office enforces UK data protection, and PECR governs cookie consent. Separately, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 replaced the old consumer protection regulations from April 2025 and covers misleading claims and reviews. Half the businesses in this sample are not meeting the first of those obligations.
Compliance varies enormously by industry
The headline figure hides very large differences between sectors. Industries with 50 or more audited sites are shown below.
| Industry | % with no privacy policy | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Beauty salons | 69.4% | 180 |
| Landscapers | 66.7% | 87 |
| Domestic cleaners | 63.4% | 309 |
| Window cleaners | 62.1% | 87 |
| Dog walkers | 61.1% | 72 |
| Photographers | 60.9% | 115 |
| Electricians | 60.4% | 91 |
| Builders | 57.4% | 788 |
| Computer repair | 57.1% | 191 |
| Dog trainers | 56.6% | 113 |
| Roofers | 53.4% | 116 |
| Removals companies | 53.4% | 178 |
| Kitchen fitters | 52.4% | 63 |
| Plumbers | 51.2% | 170 |
| Childcare and nurseries | 51.0% | 155 |
| Car repair | 47.7% | 65 |
| Taxi firms | 45.0% | 120 |
| Physiotherapists | 42.9% | 70 |
| Accountants | 34.8% | 247 |
| Financial advisers | 23.6% | 55 |
| Estate agents | 20.1% | 224 |
| Dentists | 20.0% | 50 |
Beauty salons were the UK sector least likely to have a privacy policy, with 69.4% of 180 audited sites having none. Dentists were the most likely to have one, with only 20.0% of 50 audited sites missing it.
Search engine visibility
If Google cannot work out what your business does and where it operates, it cannot show you to people searching for it. Close to half the sites audited are making that harder than it needs to be.
Of 4,324 UK small business websites audited between January and August 2026, 43.5% had no schema markup, 29.7% had no meta description and 28.3% had no H1 tag.
Schema markup by industry
| Industry | % with no schema | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Electricians | 57.1% | 91 |
| Computer repair | 54.5% | 191 |
| Childcare and nurseries | 52.9% | 155 |
| Dog walkers | 51.4% | 72 |
| Window cleaners | 49.4% | 87 |
| Beauty salons | 48.3% | 180 |
| Car repair | 47.7% | 65 |
| Domestic cleaners | 47.6% | 309 |
| Estate agents | 45.5% | 224 |
| Dog trainers | 44.2% | 113 |
| Accountants | 43.7% | 247 |
| Taxi firms | 42.5% | 120 |
| Builders | 42.4% | 788 |
| Kitchen fitters | 41.3% | 63 |
| Plumbers | 40.6% | 170 |
| Photographers | 36.5% | 115 |
| Physiotherapists | 35.7% | 70 |
| Removals companies | 34.8% | 178 |
| Landscapers | 34.5% | 87 |
| Roofers | 31.0% | 116 |
| Financial advisers | 29.1% | 55 |
| Dentists | 22.0% | 50 |
Electricians were the UK sector least likely to use schema markup, with 57.1% of 91 audited sites having none. Dentists were the most likely to use it, with only 22.0% of 50 audited sites missing it.
Usability and accessibility
Of 4,324 UK small business websites audited between January and August 2026, 61.6% had at least one image missing alt text and 45.8% had no click-to-call phone number. A further 15.5% were not mobile friendly and 13.7% had broken images.
Site performance
Across 4,324 UK small business websites audited between January and August 2026, the average load time was 0.93 seconds. 11.1% took longer than two seconds to load, and the slowest single site recorded took 19.22 seconds.
Overall scores
Of 4,324 UK small business websites audited between January and August 2026, 6.8% scored below 60 out of 100 for SEO and 5.1% scored below 50.
Most common primary issue
Every audit identifies one primary issue: the biggest single thing holding the site back.
Across 4,324 UK small business websites audited between January and August 2026, the single biggest issue was unrealised growth potential on 43.1% of sites, followed by GDPR and privacy gaps on 28.4%.
Industries covered
The audits span 84 industries. Those with 20 or more sites are listed below and the findings are most reliable for these. A further 42 industries with smaller samples contribute to the overall totals but are not broken out.
How we collect this data
Every website is audited with our own tooling. Each audit checks more than 30 factors: security, legal compliance, on-page SEO, mobile usability, accessibility, speed and broken resources.
Businesses are sourced from Google search results across UK regions and industries, with a deliberate concentration in the Midlands, Bristol and Greater Manchester. All audits run against live, publicly accessible websites. Nothing is collected from the businesses themselves — everything here is visible to any visitor or search engine.
No individual business is identified. All findings are aggregate.
What this data cannot tell you. It measures what is present on a website, not whether that website works. We do not have traffic or enquiry figures for these businesses, so we cannot say whether a compliant, well-marked-up site actually performs better commercially than one without. That would need a different study.
Update log
- August 2026 (update) 4,324 sites across 84 industries. Duplicate builder categories merged for real this time — the June and August entries claimed this had been done, but 25 sites remained in a separate category and were skewing the builder figures. Average SEO score 85.5, accessibility 77.8.
- August 2026 3,920 sites across 83 industries. Sample grew by 1,214 since June. Beauty salons overtook domestic cleaners as the sector least likely to have a privacy policy. Estate agents improved from 25.2% to 19.6% non-compliance on a larger sample. Childcare and nurseries added as a significant sample group at 155 sites.
- June 2026 2,706 sites across 78 industries. Industry breakdowns for GDPR and schema added. Average SEO score 81.0, accessibility 73.3. Regional spread disclosed.
- March 2026 (update) 1,348 sites across 65 industries. Average SEO score 70.9, accessibility 62.7.
- March 2026 1,006 sites across 59 industries. Initial publication.
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