Minimum wage naming by area: local cases and repeat names

Your employer does not have to appear on a government list before you can challenge missing wages. Check your actual hours and work-related charges, keep the evidence and get help if the pay falls short. Our local analysis of minimum-wage naming records shows which published employer locations connect to repaid arrears, and which names appear again. It does not tell you which town is safest to work in. A head-office postcode can carry a national employer’s entire case.

Read this as an address map, not a blame map

We analysed 5,277 published listings across 24 naming rounds, from 28 February 2014 to 3 September 2026. The local question is different from our national analysis of minimum-wage underpayment: which employer addresses connect to those cases, and which names can be matched conservatively across rounds?

The distinction matters to a council, an MP or a union branch. Arrears attached to a retailer’s headquarters may belong to staff across the country. An agency’s postcode need not be the postcode of the warehouse or care service where somebody worked. Do not report a regional total as money taken exclusively from that region’s residents. The lists do not give us the information needed to make that allocation.

Our region table includes unresolved locations rather than quietly dropping them. The employer column counts conservative full-name/location identities, not verified Companies House entities. A business that moved address can still be counted separately. A listing is a published entry. Worker entries are summed across entries and are not a count of different people. All sums below retain the pennies recorded in the input.

The largest published local connections, region by region

Each section identifies the largest single listing by arrears within its mapped region, preserving the employer name as recorded in the government-derived dataset. The linked naming round is the primary source to check before using a name in a local report. The round date is the publication date, not the date the worker did the unpaid work, and not necessarily the date HMRC opened or closed an investigation.

The accompanying peak-round comparison is descriptive. Government lists arrive unevenly and can include cases covering earlier years. Naming paused during a scheme review, and thresholds have changed. Neither a larger batch nor a smaller batch establishes a rise or fall in local underpayment. Our working CSV records the full per-round series, including rounds with no mapped listing in that region; the searchable public record is in the tool.

North East

The mapped record contains 214 listings and £1,465,090.70, covering 14,050 worker entries. The largest listing is Hays Travel Limited, published on 19 March 2026 with location SR1: £364,103.51 across 2,463 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 19 March 2026, with 11 listings and £507,335.01. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (35 listings); 46 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

North West

The mapped record contains 701 listings and £5,606,650.79, covering 50,201 worker entries. The largest listing is Euro Garages Limited, published on 17 October 2025 with location BB1: £824,383.62 across 3,317 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 17 October 2025, with 79 listings and £2,015,446.92. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (143 listings); 123 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

Yorkshire and The Humber

The mapped record contains 477 listings and £4,223,191.95, covering 31,524 worker entries. The largest listing is CSG FM Limited, published on 17 October 2025 with location BD19: £529,083.65 across 467 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 20 February 2024, with 51 listings and £1,035,239.18. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (79 listings); 86 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

East Midlands

The mapped record contains 401 listings and £7,692,790.40, covering 64,299 worker entries. The largest listing is Staffline Recruitment Limited, published on 20 February 2024 with location NG2: £5,125,270.93 across 36,767 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 20 February 2024, with 49 listings and £5,414,903.18. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (52 listings); 90 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

West Midlands

The mapped record contains 456 listings and £6,595,925.17, covering 76,551 worker entries. The largest listing is Lloyds Pharmacy Limited, published on 21 June 2023 with location CV2: £903,307.47 across 7,916 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 20 February 2024, with 47 listings and £1,878,348.14. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Non low-paying/other (73 listings); 85 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

East of England

The mapped record contains 380 listings and £8,348,735.90, covering 116,411 worker entries. The largest listing is Tesco Stores Limited, published on 31 December 2020 with location AL7: £5,096,946.13 across 78,199 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 31 December 2020, with 11 listings and £5,131,439.66. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Non low-paying/other (60 listings); 78 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

London

The mapped record contains 581 listings and £10,535,833.95, covering 120,420 worker entries. The largest listing is Capita Business Services Ltd, published on 29 May 2025 with location EC2V: £1,154,461.97 across 5,543 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 29 May 2025, with 70 listings and £3,453,996.93. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Non low-paying/other (127 listings); 54 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

South East

The mapped record contains 519 listings and £10,114,532.33, covering 90,688 worker entries. The largest listing is ISS Mediclean Limited, published on 19 March 2026 with location KT13: £1,506,959.68 across 6,580 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 19 March 2026, with 38 listings and £2,754,725.08. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (106 listings); 89 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

South West

The mapped record contains 334 listings and £2,509,887.10, covering 32,196 worker entries. The largest listing is WH Smith Retail Holdings Limited, published on 21 June 2023 with location SN3: £1,017,693.36 across 17,607 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 21 June 2023, with 13 listings and £1,096,352.42. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (81 listings); 65 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

Wales

The mapped record contains 213 listings and £998,294.14, covering 5,549 worker entries. The largest listing is S.A. Brain & Company, Limited, published on 20 February 2024 with location CF10: £120,049.96 across 1,822 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 20 February 2024, with 21 listings and £172,552.76. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (42 listings); 31 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

Scotland

The mapped record contains 455 listings and £3,798,485.12, covering 27,238 worker entries. The largest listing is Pizza Hut (U.K.) Limited, published on 31 December 2020 with location EH2: £845,936.41 across 10,980 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 31 December 2020, with 15 listings and £891,621.46. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (100 listings); 84 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

Northern Ireland

The mapped record contains 225 listings and £1,145,293.38, covering 11,284 worker entries. The largest listing is Property Management Services (NI) Limited, published on 29 May 2025 with location BT3: £54,852.44 across 414 worker entries. This is an employer-location link, not proof those workers were based there.

The busiest round by recorded arrears was 29 May 2025, with 28 listings and £173,808.04. The most frequent exact recorded sector label is Hospitality (50 listings); 20 listings have no usable sector label. Neither measure establishes which industry currently underpays most.

Town connections: where a postcode is useful, and where it is not

The table below shows the leading mapped settlement and postal-locality groups by arrears. It is deliberately not a council league table. We use explicit mappings from the raw location strings, including selected postcode districts that can support a clear locality label. London is grouped city-wide, not by borough. Town groups have different geographic sizes and incomplete coverage.

There are 2,802 listings worth £20,070,301.71 without a town allocation. That total includes some entries which we can place in a region. A county-only location, for example, does not justify inventing a town. Meanwhile, 321 listings worth £3,885,051.55 remain without a region. Do not add those gaps together: the region-unmapped records are already inside the town-unmapped total.

The largest region-unmapped entry is TSS (Total Security Services) Limited, London E4, published on 5 February 2016: £1,742,655.56, or 44.9% of the residual money. Its location field is blank; “London E4” is embedded in the employer-name field. We disclose that London link but do not move the money into London by inferring a location from a name. The mapped London total is therefore not the whole London-linked record.

Our reviewed map places SP10 in the Andover postal-locality group, South East; SK15 in Stalybridge, North West; CH41 and CH42 in Birkenhead, North West; and the explicit location “Colindale, London” in London. These are locality groups, not council boundaries. Bare “Newport” remains unresolved because the source does not distinguish Wales, the Isle of Wight or Shropshire.

A high total can be driven by an address used by a national company. It is not evidence that the town has the country’s worst employers, that all affected staff live nearby, or that a local council failed to enforce the minimum wage. HMRC is the minimum-wage enforcement route. Councils, advice services and union branches can use the names as leads for outreach and questions, not as a substitute for evidence from workers.

Repeat-named employers: the evidence we can actually match

We retain 2 reviewed repeat-business matches across 4 published listings, with combined arrears of £7,039,149.33. This is a restricted, checked subset, not a count of every business named more than once. We compare the full employer name without regard to capital letters or repeated whitespace. We do not strip company suffixes, merge a brand with its franchisees, or join different firms just because their names resemble each other.

A shared name and postcode is not enough to establish that two notices concern the same business. We retain only the Tesco Stores Limited pair at AL7 and the Argos Limited pair at MK9, checked against their government naming releases and continuing Companies House records. The table links the company numbers. All other automatic candidates have been excluded as unverified, including Joseph Furniture Ltd and Premier Care Limited. Their individual listings remain in the regional and town sums. The evidence file preserves each retained source record, spelling, location, date, amount and primary URL, plus the separate identity evidence.

These are repeat namings, not a verified count of repeat offenders. The naming inputs do not contain company numbers or the periods of underpayment for each notice; the identity checks are separate evidence. Separate rounds can publish separate notices covering historical or overlapping periods. Even a confirmed business identity cannot establish that it was caught, corrected its pay and then underpaid again. It also cannot establish current ownership or current pay practices.

How to check your own pay, in any town

The minimum-wage floor and HMRC complaint route apply across the UK. The amount of help available locally should not decide whether you get the wages the law requires. A printed hourly rate is not enough: deductions and uncounted working time can take your actual pay below the floor. Some published breaches arise from those calculations rather than deliberate refusal to pay. The worker is still owed the shortfall.

1. Find the name that pays you. Check your payslip and contract, then search the naming database. Try the legal name as well as a trading name. If an agency pays you, do not search only for the site where you work. The list is historical evidence, not a test of whether you can complain.
2. Check a whole pay period. Use the rate for your age and apprenticeship position in our employment rates tool. For hourly-paid work, divide pay that counts by all hours that count. Include required training, closing work and travel between assignments where the rules require it. Salaried-hours work has a different calculation: use our guide to checking and challenging underpayment rather than assuming the payslip rate settles it.
3. Check charges as well as hours. Required uniform and equipment costs can reduce minimum-wage pay. Salary sacrifice can do so too, even where you agreed to the benefit. Tips do not make up a minimum-wage shortfall. A deduction can also be unlawful for a separate reason: see our deductions guide. Not every deduction is treated alike, so keep its description and the agreement or message requiring it.
4. Keep evidence you can still access after leaving. Save payslips, rotas, bank entries and messages about work-related charges. Keep your own record of actual start and finish times, including required work after clocking out. Do not copy private information about patients, customers or colleagues. If safe, ask for a written explanation of the calculation and payment of the shortfall.
5. Use the HMRC complaint route. The GOV.UK pay and work rights complaint form accepts minimum-wage complaints, including about former employers. HMRC enforces the minimum wage on behalf of the Fair Work Agency. Tell HMRC on the form if you do not want your identity disclosed, although an employer might still guess from the circumstances. Someone else can complain for you with your permission. You do not have to confront a manager before reporting.
6. Get advice on the route and deadline. Speak to Acas in Great Britain or the Labour Relations Agency in Northern Ireland. For a usual Great Britain wage-deduction claim, the limit is six months minus a day where the relevant payday, or last deduction in a series, is on or after 1 October 2026; an earlier relevant date normally keeps three months minus a day. In Northern Ireland, the usual wage-deduction limit remains three months minus a day. Notify Acas or the Labour Relations Agency within the applicable limit for early conciliation, which can adjust the filing deadline. A workplace grievance or HMRC complaint does not stop the clock. GOV.UK’s complaint guidance says HMRC will not take a minimum-wage complaint forward if you have already started tribunal action for that issue. Starting a claim can therefore prevent HMRC acting for you: get advice before choosing the route.

Ask your union branch to help collect the hours and challenge the calculation. Usdaw organises retail workers; Unite and GMB organise across hospitality, logistics and other low-paid work; UNISON organises care and public-service workers. Check what support a new membership covers for an existing dispute. If your visa depends on your employer, or you fear losing shifts, get confidential advice before raising it with a manager. Reporting should not require you to gamble your rent.

What local newsrooms, councils and MPs should ask next

Start with the published name and round date, not an accusation about today’s pay. Check the primary release, establish which legal entity employed the staff, ask which workplaces and periods the notice covered, and give the employer a chance to explain. Ask whether deductions, unpaid working time or another issue caused the shortfall. Our dataset does not answer that question for an individual business.

Ask what changed after the arrears were repaid and whether a union or worker representative checked the correction. If a business appears again, establish the pay periods behind both notices before calling it a renewed breach. Ask the MP or local advice service what support a worker can access without first confronting their manager. A company saying the problem was technical does not change the worker’s entitlement to the missing pay.

To reproduce the local analysis, run growth/m1015/nmw-local/build.py against the underlying naming CSV and explicit location-map.csv. The working outputs are regions.csv, towns.csv, repeat.csv and press-facts.md. The last file supplies exact build-output lines for citation checks. Money is summed in integer pennies. Sector leaders use exact recorded labels, not an invented harmonised classification. We retain unknown locations and report their money separately rather than filling gaps from the employer’s name.

Download the regional CSV for regional totals and per-round trends, including the unmapped category.

Questions people ask

Does a high regional total mean more local workers were underpaid?

No. It is a total attached to published employer locations. A national employer can have staff far beyond its head office. Detection, naming thresholds, case size and missing locations also affect the table. There is no workforce denominator from which to calculate a regional underpayment rate.

Can I use the town table as a council ranking?

No. The groups combine explicit settlement names and selected postcode districts. They are not local-authority boundaries, and town coverage is incomplete. Quote the locality definition and missing coverage with any figure, and verify the address before making a claim about a particular council area.

Does a repeat name prove that the employer reoffended?

No. A matching name and location alone does not even prove the same business. We retain only two pairs with separate identity evidence, and neither establishes the breach periods or conduct after enforcement. Ask for those records before claiming a renewed breach.

What if my employer is not on the list?

Check your pay anyway. Naming only captures cases which reached publication. Keep actual hours and deductions, use the current rate for your circumstances, and ask your union or an adviser about reporting a shortfall. Absence is not a clean bill of health.

Sources

1. Government minimum-wage naming lists, combined in our searchable database, labourlaws.co.uk. The local build uses 24 rounds from 28 February 2014 to 3 September 2026. Each regional case and repeat-naming date above links to its government source. Local attribution and repeat-name matching are our calculations, not government regional statistics.
2. National naming analysis and source bibliography, labourlaws.co.uk. Read alongside the local tables for the scheme’s changing thresholds, publication gaps and national context.
3. National Minimum Wage enforcement and compliance report for 2024/25, Department for Business and Trade and HMRC. The section headed Enforcement in 2024/25 supports the separate enforcement-year reality check; it is not part of the naming-round totals.
4. Calculating the minimum wage, GOV.UK. Counted pay, deductions and working hours.
5. Complain about pay and work rights, GOV.UK. HMRC’s role, former employers, confidentiality requests, complaints made on someone’s behalf and the restriction after tribunal action starts.
6. National Minimum Wage entitlement, Acas; Labour Relations Agency, Northern Ireland advice and conciliation.
7. Employment Rights Act 2025 commencement and transitional regulations, SI 2026/954, legislation.gov.uk. Regulations 3 and 4 and the Schedule set the 1 October 2026 transition and the relevant date for Great Britain wage-deduction claims.
8. Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, article 55, legislation.gov.uk. The usual three-month limit for wage-deduction complaints, subject to conciliation adjustments.
9. Tesco Stores Limited, company 00519500 and Argos Limited, company 01081551, Companies House. Continuing company identities checked alongside the exact names and postcodes in both naming releases. Current registered addresses do not reallocate historical listings.