Newcastle upon Tyne, 19 October 2026 – Results Driven Marketing (RD Marketing), a UK B2B marketing data supplier, has analysed the Office for National Statistics’ published SIC 2007-to-SIC 2026 correspondence table and found that 230 of 806 legacy class and subclass codes link to more than one possible new classification.
The analysis identifies substantial complexity in familiar business categories. The SIC 2007 mail-order and internet-retail classification 47.91 links to 34 possible SIC 2026 classifications. The old business and domestic software development subclass 62.01/2 links to 11.
Researchers also identified a less obvious issue: an unchanged code number does not always retain the same meaning. Under SIC 2007, 47.91 refers to mail-order and internet retail. In SIC 2026, 47.91 is used for intermediation services for non-specialised retail sale.
The ONS has published SIC 2026 but is introducing it in stages. RD Marketing cautions businesses against assuming that all company registers and business databases have already adopted the new classifications.
“SIC codes are useful starting points, but companies need to check what an industry code actually represents, especially when moving between classification versions,” said Iain Irvin, Director of RD Marketing. “A strong B2B audience is built around the businesses you really want to reach, not just a code copied from an old spreadsheet.”
RD Marketing also offers detailed commercial market-sector selection alongside SIC-based filtering. Its supplied taxonomy includes 2,285 named sector classifications, enabling more specific descriptions of target audiences. This is not a substitute for checking individual business activities or mapping each record correctly.
The published analysis measures classification relationships, not the number or proportion of UK businesses that require reclassification. RD Marketing says businesses should confirm the SIC version used by their data provider and review saved industry targeting before converting it to the new framework.
Full research and methodology: https://rdmarketing.co.uk/knowledge-hub/uk-sic-2026-b2b-marketing-data/