Market activity reporter for shares

Our market activity reporter for shares publishes an estimate of total trading activity in listed shares on UK venues or traded over the counter and reported in the UK.

The market activity reporter aims to provide an overall view of aggregate trading activity to inform participants in equity markets, bringing together data from across the range of platforms where UK trading is executed or reported.

Using the market activity reporter for shares

The data is published on an FCA data publishing platform. Use of this data is subject to acceptance of terms and conditions. The market activity metrics for relevant shares are searchable by share or selection of shares. The data that is accessible for viewing and for download runs from 1 August 2025 – that is, a year prior to the launch of the tool.

The service provides guidance only. It is only intended to provide an overview of high-level market activity metrics in the UK market. It does not replace the need for expert advice specific to your needs before making any investment decisions. The service is free to use. Our user guide (PDF)[1] provides help with how to use the tool.

Go to the market activity reporter for shares[2]

What information this tool provides

The market activity reporter calculates trading activity measures for shares listed on the FCA’s Official List[3]. The service includes, for each share in scope, the number, volume and value of transactions in that share on each trading day. In each case we will publish an estimate of:

• Its total market activity based on all trades across the various different UK trade execution mechanisms on the previous trading day.
• Its adjusted market activity, subtracting from total trading activity trades that are 'technical trades' which would not generally be regarded as trades in which the market at large had the opportunity to participate.

You can read more about how we calculate and publish these market activity metrics in our methodology document (PDF)[4].

These calculations are made based on input data the FCA has licensed from a third-party data vendor.

Why we have set up the market activity reporter for shares

The UK has a competitive trading landscape which offers market participants a choice of how to execute trades in a way that meets their needs.

Given the wide choice of available venues, it can be challenging for investors and companies to source data that provides a complete view of the market as a whole. A participant looking at data about trading on only some venues will be underestimating the total level of trading activity in the UK. This is illustrated by the graph below, which shows that the value of trading in UK shares that is addressable by a range of market participants is consistently around 3 times more than would be indicated by data from the primary exchange alone.

The market activity reporter aims to provide an estimate of total market volumes to enable users to understand the whole picture.

Related market reforms to support growth

The market activity reporter is part of a wider set of initiatives advancing our objective to support access to comprehensive trade data in UK markets.

We are implementing an equity consolidated tape (CT)[5] publishing real-time data on UK equity markets. The market activity reporter is an interim solution to the equity CT, meeting an immediate need for more information about total activity in UK equity markets to support investors, companies and other users.

In time, reporting of market-wide trading activity metrics for shares in the UK will be done by the equity CT, in addition to its wider role of reporting trade-level data for equities.

This initiative forms part of our strategic priority to support growth in our 2025-2030 Strategy (PDF)[6].