This article was written by Millie Kendall, CEO of the British Beauty Council.
When we first set up the British Beauty Council, the intention was simple – to unite the UK beauty industry, raise its reputation and facilitate a direct line into the Government.
This month marks one of my proudest moments. After seven years of lobbying by the British Beauty Council, the UK Government will introduce updated Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes for hair, beauty and spa services.
It is the first change affecting our part of the industry since 1948 and a significant win for our professional services sectors. This is why it matters…
It may sound small, but symbolically and practically, it is a huge step forward
SIC codes: Why the Government’s classification system required change
SIC codes are the system governments use to categorise what businesses do.
They underpin how economic data is gathered, how industries are analysed and, ultimately, how policymakers understand sectors like ours.
Since 1948, the professional services side of the beauty industry has sat under the UK Government SIC code 96.2 – ‘hair and other beauty treatments’.
This category lived inside the wider “other personal services” classification, alongside everything from dry cleaning and pet-sitting to funeral directors.
When I first discovered this just before the Covid-19 pandemic, it resonated with me so distinctly because my mother was born in 1948 and was in her seventies at the time.
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Yet, the classification used to define a modern, dynamic UK beauty industry employing hundreds-of-thousands of people had not meaningfully changed since the year she was born.
And it explained something that I had always sought an answer for – whenever I filled out an official form, my profession – or indeed our industry – never appeared as a box I could tick.
The system simply did not recognise the true nature of our businesses properly.
Millie Kendall, CEO of the British Beauty Council
Why this SIC code change for the UK beauty industry matters
At first glance, SIC codes might feel like bureaucratic detail, but they influence far more than most people realise.
If government statistics do not accurately identify our sector, then policymakers cannot fully understand who we are, how our businesses operate, the number of people we employ or how much we contribute to the economy.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, this became painfully clear.
When the UK Government tried to assess which
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