East of England Businesses Leave UK Average in the Dust When it Comes to Paying Bills

The Numbers

• Companies analysed in East of England: 349
• Average PaymentCheck Score in East of England: 68.7/100
• UK average PaymentCheck Score: 50.0/100
• Difference between East of England and UK average: 18.7 points

What Stands Out

East of England businesses, on average, are significantly better payers than the rest of the UK, with a nearly 20 point advantage. However, the data also reveals a considerable spread in payment performance, as seen in the range from 100 to 18.7.

Best Payers

The top echelon of payers in the East of England is heavily dominated by the hospitality sector. Hilton UK Manage Limited and Hilton Worldwide Manage Limited both achieve perfect scores of 100/100, followed closely by ADDA Hotels and HLT Stakis Operator Limited at 98.5/100. Rounding out the top five is Connells Survey & Valuation Limited with a score of 98.4/100, showing some diversity.

Worst Payers

At the other end of the spectrum, payment practices are concerning. Mundipharma Limited languishes at the bottom with a score of just 18.7/100, followed by Stapleton's (Tyre Services) Limited at 20.3/100 and Fox's Burton's Companies (FBC) UK Limited at 20.8/100. Two Mundipharma companies feature in the bottom five: Mundipharma Medical Company Limited scored 26.3/100, along with Xaarjet Limited (26.9/100). Suppliers who deal with these companies should be aware of potential payment delays and may want to use a late payment calculator.

Sector Breakdown

The sector data is based on only one or a handful of companies so its usefulness is questionable and doesn't provide robust evidence for broader trends. Media and Publishing tops the list with a single company averaging 94.5. Transportation Infrastructure also features only one company, with an average of 92.1. Travel and Transportation looks more interesting, averaging 91.2 across eight companies. Education (87.3 avg with 13 companies) is the best sector with a reasonable sample size, beating out Fashion's 84.2 (one company only).

East of England businesses are better payers than the UK average, but the bottom performers show there's still plenty of room for improvement to reach that average score of 68.7.

2025: The Story

East of England payment practices showed a modest but positive trend in 2025, with the average score improving by 1.1 points to 68.7/100 among 349 reporting companies. The most striking change came from the TUI group; TUI UK Limited dramatically improved its score by 46.2 points to an impressive 93.5/100, while TUI Airways Limited saw a notable decline of 5.5 points, dropping to 84.2/100, highlighting divergent internal performance. Other significant improvements included BGL Group Limited, which jumped 27.0 points to 87.0/100, and Mediterranean Shipping Company (UK) Limited, up 29.7 points to 71.9/100. On the downside, Bespak Europe Limited saw a concerning drop of 5.1 points to 41.8/100. Interestingly, several aviation-related companies, including TUI Airways, EasyJet UK Limited (-5.0 points), and Inflite Engineering Services Limited (-5.1 points), experienced declines. This suggests varied pressures across different sub-sectors. Suppliers should remain attentive to individual company performance, even within seemingly related industries.