Late payments cost UK businesses an estimated £22,000 per year on average, while accounts payable fraud now affects roughly one in three organisations. Despite the scale of the problem, most finance teams still have no reliable way to compare their payment behaviour or fraud exposure against the rest of their industry. To address this, we analysed payment performance, fraud risk, and supplier exposure across 19 UK SIC industry sectors, drawing on data from Atradius, UK Finance, the NAO, Cifas, Coface, and several SME payment studies.
Late payments cost UK businesses £22,000 a year on average. AP fraud hits 1 in 3. And most finance teams are flying blind, benchmarking their payment performance against nothing but gut feel.
We decided to fix that.
What we did
We researched payment behaviour, fraud exposure, and supplier risk across all 19 UK SIC industry sectors. We pulled data from Atradius, UK Finance, the NAO, NHSCFA, Cifas, Coface, Xero's Small Business Index, and half a dozen other sources to build a picture of what "normal" actually looks like — sector by sector.
The result is a free, public benchmark page covering:
- **Average payment days** by industry (spoiler: Construction averages 72 days, Accommodation & Food just 20)
- **AP fraud risk levels** for every sector, rated Critical through Low
- **Estimated annual fraud losses** per sector — from £250m in Construction and Health, down to £10m in sectors like Education
- **Fraud likelihood** — how many businesses in each sector are statistically likely to be hit
- **The four AP fraud types** that account for the vast majority of losses: invoice redirection, mandate fraud, duplicate invoicing, and false supplier creation
Why we built this
Because when we talk to finance teams, we hear the same thing: "I know late payments are a problem, but I don't know how we compare."
If you're a construction firm waiting 72 days for payment and you think that's just how it works -it is, but it shouldn't be. If you're in wholesale and you've never been hit by invoice redirection fraud - statistically, you will be.
We believe transparency makes businesses safer. If you can see that your sector has a 1-in-3 chance of being defrauded, you're more likely to do something about it. And if you can see that 64% of UK businesses still don't have automated invoice matching, you'll understand why fraudsters keep winning.
What this means for Accounting Links users
Every benchmark in this research is already baked into the platform. When you onboard a supplier, we score them against their industry's trust baseline. When an invoice lands that looks unusual for your sector, we flag it. When your payment days drift above your industry average, you'll know.
This isn't just research for the sake of it. It's the data layer underneath every fraud alert, trust score, and supplier verification on Accounting Links.
Go look at the numbers
The full benchmark data is live now — every sector, every metric, fully sourced. Whether you're a CFO trying to justify tighter payment controls, or a finance manager who's been saying "we need better AP processes" for months, this gives you the evidence.
[View the Industry Benchmarks →](https://accountinglinks.io/benchmarks)
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*Sources: Atradius Payment Practices Barometer 2024, UK Finance Annual Fraud Report 2024, Cifas Fraudscape 2024, NAO Cross-Government Fraud Landscape 2024, NHSCFA Strategic Intelligence Assessment, Coface UK Payment Study, Xero Small Business Index, Ivalua AP Automation Report 2024, Trustpair B2B Payment Fraud Report 2024, GOV.UK Construction Payment Practices.*
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