The following graphs show the numbers of notices of appointment published in the Gazette on a weekly basis.  Therefore, they likely lag a week or so behind the actual dates of appointment.  The graphs are updated each week.

The figures for voluntary dissolution applications (i.e. those initiated by the company) have been drawn from the Office for National Statistics.  Formal insolvencies pale into insignificance against this population: there were over 300,000 voluntary dissolution applications in the past 12 months.

CVLs have always been the most popular insolvency process, but they are far more dominant now than they were just before the pandemic: the number of CVLs in Feb 2023 was over 50% larger than the number in Feb 2020 (i.e. based on the number of Gazette notices in that month).  Compare that to the change in the numbers of ADMs and Compulsories: they were 25% and 38% lower in Feb 2023 than the numbers in Feb 2020.  In Feb 2020, CVLs accounted for 73% of all those three insolvency processes; in Feb 2023, the figure was 86%.

Having said that, CVLs appear to have peaked, whereas WUCs and ADMs are still on the rise – at 64 for the week to 07/10/23, the number of ADMs in any one week has not been higher at any time since 01/20, when I started these graphs.  MVLs have been on a gradual trend downwards for the past couple of years.

BKY numbers have shown a very slight increase over the same period, but what my graphs don’t show is that the number of DROs in Oct-23 was more than double the number in Oct-20 and was well over four times the number of BKYs in Oct-23 – see the Insolvency Service’s monthly figures at www.gov.uk/government/collections/monthly-insolvency-statistics