UK coaching, leadership and professional development providers: a market snapshot

CompareHQ lists UK providers of executive coaching, leadership development, Non-Executive Director (NED) services, coach training and related professional development. Because every listing records the same set of facts, the directory gives a useful view of how this part of the market is shaped. This page reports those facts as they stand today. It describes the providers CompareHQ lists, not every provider in the UK, and each percentage states how many providers it is based on.

Key figures

Providers by category

Each provider is counted once, under its main category. Many also work across other categories, which their CompareHQ profile shows.

How providers deliver

199 of the 236 listed providers state how they deliver. Most offer a mix of formats rather than choosing one, which gives buyers room to design a programme around where participants are rather than around the provider.

Where providers are based

Of the 186 providers that state a UK base, 89 (48%) are based in London. The rest are spread across 77 other towns and cities. A provider's base says little about where it can work: many deliver nationally, and online delivery removes distance altogether.

How long providers have operated

170 providers record the year they were founded, taken from their own published information. The median founding year is 2004. Age is not a proxy for quality, but it can be a useful question when a programme runs over several years.

Coaching accreditation

Coaching is not a regulated profession in the UK, so accreditation is voluntary. The main coaching bodies are the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and the Association for Coaching (AC). The Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) also awards coaching qualifications. The table shows how many listed providers record at least one accreditation or credential from each body.

Separately, 9 listed providers hold B Corp certification and 13 hold an ISO certification, in each case with published evidence.

Methodology and limits

• Figures cover providers with a live, non-demo listing on CompareHQ on the date shown. They do not describe the whole UK market, and CompareHQ does not estimate or extrapolate beyond its own directory.
• Several profile fields are optional, so each percentage states its base: the number of providers that actually record that field. Fields too incomplete to report reliably are left out.
• Delivery formats are recorded in providers' own words and grouped here into three types. Accreditations are counted where they are recorded on a provider's profile; a provider without one recorded may still hold one.
• Paid listing tiers have no effect on these figures. See our comparison methodology for how listings are compiled.

FAQs