UK companies struggling with transparency

The UK's top companies are failing to meet increased stakeholder demands for online transparency by failing to include sought-after and essential information on their websites.

New research by Comprend, which ranks the UK's top 200 companies through their corporate websites, found UK companies do not have key information desired by investors, analyst and job seekers. Edelman's 2023 Trust Barometer shows that many people assume a brand is doing nothing, or hiding something if it does not communicate its actions to address societal issues. 

Top UK companies performed particularly poorly on investor relations, fulfilling only 26% of criteria to meet stakeholder expectations, compared to 28% for European companies.

For Careers, UK companies performed slightly better fulfilling almost half (48%) of the criteria, including presenting information about learning and development which was much higher at 63% and presenting their purpose (80%). However, only a quarter present any information about work/life balance and just 36% offer any information about working from home. On ESG, UK companies fulfil just 43% of the sustainability criteria and only 25% present data on target achievements.

Top performers

Energy company, BP, topped this year's survey, scoring 61.4 out of a possible 100 points. Diageo rose to second and Shell maintained third.

See the complete results for the UK companies in Webranking 2023-2024.

More information
karen.lester@comprend.com or freja.nilsson@comprend.com