Special Quality Alloys Limited reported an average of 68 days to pay its suppliers in the six months to 31 May 2026, with 62% of its invoices paid more than 60 days after it received them.
The next slowest were Independent Forgings & Alloys Limited at 63 days (the six months to 31 March 2026), Orona Limited at 59 days, Building Solutions (National) Limited at 57 days and CPL Products Limited at 56 days (the six months to 30 September 2026). Those reports cover the six months to 30 June 2026 unless shown.
Across the 31 companies, the median company paid 49% of its invoices within 30 days, against 64% for all UK reporters. In all, five of the Sheffield companies said half or more of their invoices were not paid within the terms agreed with the supplier; the median share paid late was 19%, against 15% nationally.
The largest shares of invoices paid outside agreed terms were reported by Building Solutions (National) Limited (90%), B. Braun Medical Limited (74%) and CPL Products Limited (61%).
The fastest payers were Chorus Education Trust, at 16 days; Sumo Digital Ltd., at 17 days; Insight Direct (UK) Ltd, at 20 days.
Of the 25 companies that also reported for a period ending about a year earlier, 9 were paying faster on average and 13 slower.
Construction and retentions
Of the Sheffield companies, 9 reported construction contracts in their latest period, and 6 said those contracts include retention clauses, which let the paying party hold back part of each payment until the work is finished or its defects period ends. The typical standard retention rate was 5%. Companies reporting retention clauses include Gleeson Developments Limited and Stonebridge Homes Limited (5% each). The construction and retention questions were added to the reports filed from July 2025, so they appear only in the most recent filings.
How the figures were worked out
Large companies and limited liability partnerships must publish their payment figures every six months under the Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017. The figures here are what each company filed on the government’s Check payment practices service, published as open data under the Open Government Licence v3.0, as downloaded on 3 November 2026. Each company’s latest report is used, counting only reports for periods that ended on or after 4 May 2025. Companies are placed in Sheffield by the registered office address held by Companies House (data as at 1 September 2026), using the Sheffield postcode districts (S1 to S14, S17, S20, S21, S25, S26, S35 and S36). A registered office is where a company is registered, not necessarily where it trades or employs people. The median is the middle company when all are ranked. Reports with figures that cannot be right, such as an average above 365 days or a share above 100%, are left out. Figures for groups are as filed by each subsidiary.
Every company’s full payment record, report by report: Fair Payment.
Chart: Sheffield Business News, from Check payment practices open data.
Fair Payment is published by Domain Farm Limited, which also publishes Sheffield Business News.