How UK Industries Compare on AI Search Visibility Signals: A Cross-Industry Scorecard

Rank4AI | rank4ai.co.uk

Last updated: March 2026

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TL;DR

Across hundreds of UK SME websites spanning nine industries, AI search visibility signals vary dramatically by sector. Marketing agencies and accountancy firms lead the field. Legal firms score zero on every signal measured. Estate agents — operating in one of the most competitive local search environments — are among the weakest performers. No industry has cracked Person schema, and fewer than half of industries have made any attempt at llms.txt adoption. The gap between the best and worst sectors is not marginal: it is foundational.

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What This Page Is

This is a reference document, not a blog post. It consolidates findings from Rank4AI's ongoing audit programme, which examines UK SME websites across multiple industries for the technical and content signals that influence visibility in AI-powered search tools — including AI overviews, large language model citations, and conversational search engines.

Each signal assessed here maps to how AI systems read, interpret, and reference web content. The goal is not to rank industries against each other for competitive reasons, but to provide an honest, data-led picture of where each sector currently stands and where improvement is most needed.

This page will be updated as more audits are completed.

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Methodology

Scope: Hundreds of UK SME websites, audited between late 2025 and March 2026, spanning nine industry categories.

Industries covered: Accountancy, Marketing Agency, Personal Trainer, Plumber, Dentist, Restaurant, Estate Agent, Legal, Retail.

What was assessed for each site:

• Schema markup presence and type (Organisation, Person, FAQ, LocalBusiness, etc.)
• H1 tag clarity and presence
• Review signals: mention of reviews and link to a review sou