Every company on this directory has earned its place by winning a Fast Payer Award, and each carries a Fast Payment Score from 0 to 100. This page explains, in full, where that score comes from, the government-reported data behind it, and—just as importantly—what it deliberately does not do. Our aim is a score that any company can check, understand, and hold us to.
For a small supplier, when a large customer pays can matter as much as whether they win the work at all. Late or unpredictable payment ties up cash, holds back growth, and in the worst cases can sink an otherwise healthy business. The Fast Payment Score exists to make visible something suppliers usually have to guess at: which of their prospective customers pay quickly, and how reliably they do it. It turns a company’s real, publicly reported payment behaviour into a single, comparable signal that a supplier can actually use when deciding who to work with.
It rewards not only speed but certainty. A supplier who knows that most invoices will land inside the same fast, predictable window can plan, hire and invest with confidence. That predictability is worth as much to a small business as the speed itself—which is why both sit at the heart of the score.
Every organisation listed here has won a Fast Payer Award. By definition, these are companies already doing right by their suppliers. The score is not a ranking of good against bad, and it is not a fresh test that any company has to pass. A company toward the lower end of the range is still paying faster and more reliably than the overwhelming majority of UK businesses—it has simply earned its place among an exceptional group.
We are not re-judging companies that have already proved themselves. We are giving their good behaviour a public, comparable shape, and pointing suppliers toward customers worth having. If your organisation is on this directory, it is because you are doing something right—and everything here is meant to show that, not to scrutinise it.
The score only ever ranks companies that have already cleared a bar to be here at all.
To appear in this directory, a company must have won a Fast Payer Award within the last two years. The award recognises organisations that pay the large majority of their suppliers promptly and within agreed terms. This matters for two reasons. First, it means every listing has an independent, earned reason to be here—the directory is a curated shortlist, not a scrape of every company that files payment data. Second, it is self-correcting: the directory is rebuilt every year, so a company whose payment behaviour slips below the award standard simply does not reappear the following year. Recognition has to be re-earned, not banked.
Because eligibility is handled by the award, the Fast Payment Score itself does not need to re-test whether a company is reliable. That is already established. The score answers a narrower, more useful question for a supplier choosing who to work with: among these proven Fast Payers, how fast—and how predictably—does this one actually pay?
Both are built entirely from percentages and days that companies report by law—no opinions, no marketing claims.
Every large UK company must report its payment practices twice a year under the Duty to Report on Payment Practices and Performance. Two figures from that return tell a supplier almost everything they need to know about getting paid: how quickly invoices are settled on average, and what share of them land in the fastest window. The Fast Payment Score is a simple, transparent blend of exactly those two.
From: reported average time to pay
How quickly the company pays on average. We convert the reported average days-to-pay into a 0–100 index, benchmarked to standard UK payment terms: paying immediately scores 100, paying at 30 days scores 50, and the score reaches 0 at 60 days—the outer edge of what counts as standard terms.
From: % of invoices paid within 30 days
What proportion of the company’s invoices are paid inside the fast, predictable 30-day window. This is the certainty signal: the more invoices that land in one prompt window, the more confidently a supplier knows when they will be paid. It is already a percentage, so it needs no conversion.
Two simple scores out of 100, then the average of the two. Here it is on a real-world example: a company that pays in 15 days on average, and pays 95% of its invoices within 30 days.
Paying straight away scores the full 100. Paying at 60 days — the outer edge of standard payment terms — scores 0. Everything in between slides evenly down the scale. Our example company pays in 15 days, a quarter of the way to 60, so it keeps three-quarters of the marks: a speed score of 75.
This one needs no conversion — it is already a figure out of 100. Our example company paid 95% of its invoices within 30 days, so this score is simply 95.
Add the two scores together and halve them: (75 + 95) ÷ 2 = 85. That is the company’s Fast Payment Score.
Pays in 15 days on average · 95% of invoices paid within 30 days.
The precise version, for anyone who wants it: speed score = (60 − average days to pay) ÷ 60 × 100 (kept between 0 and 100), and Fast Payment Score = (speed score + % paid within 30 days) ÷ 2, rounded to a whole number. Because both parts are already scores out of 100, they can simply be averaged — the calculation never adds a number of days to a percentage.
For a company with several years of reporting, the score uses its most recent reporting period only. The full year-by-year history is shown separately on each profile, as a pattern over time — but it never dilutes the current score.
The tier is a plain-language banding of the same score, to make the directory easy to scan.
Pays almost every invoice quickly and inside the fast window. Among the very fastest payers on the directory.
Consistently prompt, with the large majority of invoices paid inside the fast window.
A proven Fast Payer Award winner whose current speed places it in the recognised band.
Certified Customer of Choice is a separate, higher recognition earned through the independent GBP-14 Diagnostic—not derived from the Fast Payment Score.
Every figure behind a score—average days to pay, the percentage paid within 30 days, and the percentage paid within agreed terms—is drawn from companies’ own returns under the UK Duty to Report on Payment Practices and Performance. Nothing on a profile is a marketing claim, and no score, quote, or certification is invented. The directory is refreshed annually, and scores are recalculated as each new reporting period is published.
If you believe your organisation’s figures are out of date or have been matched incorrectly, we want to know. Email terry@goodbusinesspays.com and we will review the underlying data with you.