The data suggests a marginal improvement in payment practices in the North West between 2020 and 2025. Although the average score increased, the small size of the rise, coupled with a fall in the number of companies surveyed, points to changes within a specific subset of businesses rather than a wholesale shift across the entire region. Businesses struggling with late payments can use a late payment calculator to assess the impact on their cashflow.
North West payment performance in 2025: 65.4/100 vs 62.2/100 in 2020.

We analysed over 100,000 published UK payment-practice reports. Late payment is falling — from 20% of invoices paid outs
How UK companies' payment practices changed in 2025 — the biggest improvers, the firms slipping, and the strongest new e
The UK agriculture sector is significantly outperforming the UK average for payment practices, suggesting a degree of fi
The year-on-year decline of 0.1 points, while statistically insignificant, suggests a stagnation in payment performance