Missed Call Statistics for UK Small Businesses: What the Research Says

Nobody publishes an official figure for how many calls to businesses ring out. What exists is call data from companies that track or answer calls for a living. Three of them land close together.

A year earlier, in July 2025, CallRail put the figure at 30%, from the calls of more than 220,000 businesses.

These are the best numbers available, and they have limits. All three come from companies that sell call products, as we do. None publishes its full method. CallRail and Invoca are American, and Invoca's customers are mostly larger firms. That is why we say "about 1 in 4" and "a business", and not "exactly a quarter of calls to UK small businesses".

This figure comes from research published by BT on 1 October 2026. BT Business asked the polling firm Censuswide to survey 1,500 decision makers at UK businesses with fewer than 250 employees, between 23 and 28 September 2026.

Each business was asked how much revenue it had lost to missed calls so far this year. BT scaled those answers up to a full year and multiplied them by the government's count of businesses of each size:

• 1 to 9 employees: an average of £1,597 a year each, £1.84 billion in total.
• 10 to 49 employees: an average of £3,753 a year each, £0.83 billion in total.
• 50 to 249 employees: £1.01 billion, worked out as a share of turnover, because the answers from this group were too low to be believed.

That adds up to about £3.7 billion a year, or about £71 million a week.

Two things to keep in mind. The figure rests on owners' own estimates of what they lost, and BT itself calls it indicative. And BT sells an AI receptionist of its own, so like every source on this page it has an interest in the answer.

UK studies measure different things, which is why their figures look so far apart.

• BT with Censuswide, 2026: 67% of small and medium businesses say that on an average day they miss at least one call they believe loses them business.
• Moneypenny, 2016: from a survey of 300 micro businesses and call data from 10,000 businesses, a third of micro businesses failed to answer their incoming calls. That is a share of businesses, not of calls.
• TelePA, date not confirmed: one test call to each of 142 UK small businesses, and 47% did not answer. We could only find reports of this study, not the study itself, so treat it with care.
• Penelope, 2013: owners of micro businesses estimated that they miss 9% of calls about new business.

In these studies the lowest figure is owners' own estimate, and the highest comes from test calls.

Often, yes. Alongside the business survey, BT had Censuswide ask 2,000 UK adults what they do when a business does not pick up:

• 75% of potential customers give a business three call attempts before giving up.
• 58% would tell friends and family to avoid a business that failed to pick up.

Voicemail does not rescue much. In Moneypenny's report, 69% of callers who reached voicemail hung up without leaving a message.

So a missed call is often a delayed customer rather than a lost one, and some callers do go elsewhere. How many depends on your trade and how urgent the job is, which is why we do not put a figure on what one missed call costs your business.

We followed each figure back to the place it was first published and read the original. Where we could only find someone else's account of a study, we say so above.

Last checked on 11 October 2026. If you know a better source or spot a mistake, email [email protected] and we will put it right.

subba is an AI receptionist and booking system for small UK businesses. On every plan, from £9.99 a month, it answers your website chat and takes bookings online at any hour. Answering your phone is an add-on, from £29.99 a month for 100 minutes. The pricing page has the full breakdown.