The biggest restaurant groups in the UK, 2026
The UK's biggest restaurant, fast-food, coffee and food-to-go brands ranked by the turnover in their own filed accounts. We rank the brand operator, not the franchisees that run many of the outlets — and the result says as much about how Britain actually eats as any survey could.
What the filings show
The biggest "restaurant" in Britain is a baker. Greggs books £2.15B — more than Nando's, Pret and Domino's combined — by selling sausage rolls and coffee from more outlets than any sit-down chain has tables. Behind it comes the fast-food and coffee establishment: McDonald's, Costa, Nando's, all over £1B, then a long tail of casual-dining brands a fraction of their size.
Coffee is the quiet giant. Costa, Pret, Starbucks and Caffè Nero bill £3.04B between them — more than every casual-dining chain on this list put together. Britain has fallen out of love with the mid-market Italian and into a flat white: the growth on this list belongs to coffee (Caffè Nero +15%) and to a handful of newer, premium table-service brands (Dishoom (+17%), Caffè Nero (+15%), Nando’s (+10%), Greggs (+7%)), not to the chains that defined the 2010s high street.
Read the fast-food numbers with the franchise model in mind: the McDonald's and KFC figures here are the brand companies, not the hundreds of franchisees who run most of the outlets and file their own accounts. And note who's missing — Wagamama, Gail's, Byron, Frankie & Benny's — names that went through private-equity hands and restructuring and now file audit-exempt or dormant. The post-pandemic casual-dining shake-out is written as clearly in what isn't filed as in what is.
Top UK restaurant groups by filed turnover
Latest accounts filed as of June 2026 · refreshed monthly
| # | Firm | Turnover | YoY | Staff | Accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Greggs bakery & food-to-go Listed bakery and food retailer Greggs plc, consolidated — Britain’s biggest food-to-go chain; technically a baker, but it sells more hot food than most restaurant groups. | £2.15B | +7% | 33,383 | FY to Dec 2025 |
| 02 | McDonald’s UK fast food UK fast food restaurant operator McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd — the company-operated arm and franchise royalties; most UK outlets are run by separately-filing franchisees. | £1.82B | -1% | 24,375 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 03 | Costa Coffee coffee Multinational coffeehouse chain Costa Ltd — owned by Coca-Cola; the UK’s biggest coffee chain. | £1.23B | +1% | 17,957 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 04 | Nando’s Casual dining restaurant operator Nando’s Chickenland Ltd. | £1.13B | +10% | 19,737 | FY to Feb 2025 |
| 05 | Pret A Manger coffee & food-to-go Sandwich and coffee shop chain Pret A Manger (Europe) Ltd. | £735M | +1% | 7,126 | FY to Jan 2025 |
| 06 | Domino’s Pizza pizza delivery Listed pizza delivery master franchisee Domino’s Pizza Group plc — the listed UK master franchisee. | £685M | +3% | 2,402 | FY to Dec 2025 |
| 07 | Starbucks UK coffee UK coffee shop chain operator Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Ltd — the company-operated arm; many UK stores are licensed. | £556M | +6% | 5,352 | FY to Sept 2025 |
| 08 | Caffè Nero coffee Holding company for Caffè Nero Caffè Nero Group Holdings Ltd, consolidated. | £520M | +15% | 6,965 | FY to May 2024 |
| 09 | PizzaExpress Pizza restaurant chain operator PizzaExpress (Restaurants) Ltd. | £362M | -1% | 7,845 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 10 | Five Guys fast food Fast food restaurant operator Five Guys JV Ltd — the UK joint venture of the US burger chain. | £321M | +1% | 4,741 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 11 | KFC UK fast food Fast food restaurant chain operator Kentucky Fried Chicken (Great Britain) Ltd — the franchisor entity; most outlets are franchised. | £280M | — | — | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 12 | Azzurri Group Restaurant group holding company Azzurri Group Holdings UK Ltd, consolidated — ASK Italian, Zizzi and Coco di Mama. | £269M | -1% | 5,263 | FY to Jun 2025 |
| 13 | Azumi premium dining Licensed restaurant operator Azumi Ltd — Zuma and Roka. | £203M | -1% | 2,149 | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 14 | Côte French-style restaurant chain operator Côte Restaurant Group Ltd — French-bistro chain. | £152M | +3% | 2,745 | FY to Sept 2024 |
| 15 | Dishoom Indian restaurant chain operator The Bombay-café group. | £137M | +17% | 1,990 | FY to Dec 2024 |
The next 4
Firms ranked 16–19
| 16 | Gordon Ramsay Restaurants fine dining | £134M | — | 17-mo period to Dec 2024 |
| 17 | YO! Sushi | £82M | — | FY to Mar 2025 |
| 18 | Tortilla fast casual | £68M | +4% | FY to Dec 2024 |
| 19 | Honest Burgers | £60M | +6% | FY to Jan 2025 |
The firms we can't rank
The missing restaurant names are the franchised brands and the casual-dining chains that now file audit-exempt.
- Wagamama — files audit-exempt within The Restaurant Group (Apollo-owned); no separately disclosed turnover
- Gail’s (Bread Holdings) — files audit-exempt; no disclosed group turnover
- Wahaca, Byron, Franco Manca, GBK — file audit-exempt, dormant or below scope
- Burger King UK, Subway — UK operations are largely franchised through separately-filing or audit-exempt entities
- The Big Table Group (Bella Italia, Las Iguanas) — its holding company under-consolidates; no comparable group turnover figure
How this list is built
Source. The latest annual accounts each firm filed at Companies House. Where a firm files consolidated group accounts, the group figure is used; the entity ranked is named under each firm. Where a firm filed a transition period longer or shorter than twelve months (flagged in the Accounts column), the table shows the filed figure but the firm is ranked on its annualised equivalent.
Who counts as a restaurant group. Operators of restaurant, fast-food, coffee and food-to-go brands, ranked by filed turnover and tagged by type. We include the company that owns and operates the brand, and exclude the franchisees that run many outlets of the same brand (counting them separately would double-count McDonald's, KFC and the rest).
Scope. Pub-restaurant groups (Mitchells & Butlers, Loungers) are ranked in our pub companies list; contract and travel-hub caterers and members' clubs are excluded. Brands that file audit-exempt or dormant accounts (Wagamama, Gail's, Byron) can't be ranked and are named in the firms we can't rank.
Cadence. Rebuilt monthly as new accounts land. Spot a restaurant group we've missed or misread? Tell us — the methodology only works if it's challenged.
Quick answers
- What is the biggest restaurant group in the UK?
- By filed turnover it's Greggs at £2.15B — technically a baker, but it sells more hot food across more outlets than any sit-down chain. The biggest conventional restaurant brand is McDonald's, and the biggest table-service group is Nando's.
- Why is so much of the list coffee?
- Because coffee is where the money is: Costa, Pret, Starbucks and Caffè Nero bill £3.04B between them — more than every casual-dining chain on the list combined. Britain eats out less than it drinks coffee.
- Why are McDonald's and KFC's figures lower than I'd expect?
- Because most of their outlets are franchised. The figures here are the brand companies — McDonald's company-operated restaurants and franchise royalties, KFC's franchisor entity — not the hundreds of franchisees that run the rest and file their own accounts. Counting those separately would double-count the brand.
- Where are Wagamama, Gail's and Byron?
- In the firms we can't rank. Wagamama files audit-exempt inside The Restaurant Group, Gail's (Bread Holdings) files audit-exempt, and several casual-dining names that went through restructuring file dormant or below scope. The post-pandemic casual-dining shake-out is as much an accounting story as a culinary one.