TL;DR: In our first benchmark (15,000 enrichments run in 2025 and 2026, published May 2026), Wiza was the cleanest of the data providers for UK manufacturing: 96% mobile format on 458 Managing Directors and 100% on 166 operations leaders. Clean format is only half the job. In October 2026 we dialled 333 usable UK mobiles from Kaspr and reached the right person 71 times. That is 21%, one of the weakest results of any country we call. Keep your providers, add one where they are weak, and check every number before your team dials.
96% clean.
That is what Wiza returned on 458 Managing Directors at UK manufacturing companies in our 2025 to 2026 data. On 166 operations leaders it was 100%. No landlines, no foreign codes, no broken numbers.
Then we dialled UK mobiles on live campaigns. A mobile can pass every format check and still reach the person only 1 time in 5 in the UK.
Answrd is part of Profitbl, which runs cold calling campaigns across Europe. Here are the providers that return clean UK manufacturing mobiles, what happened when we called UK numbers, and the step that decides whether your reps talk to anyone.
Which data provider returns the cleanest mobiles for UK manufacturing?
Wiza, in our first benchmark. It returned 96% mobile format on 458 UK manufacturing Managing Directors and 100% on 166 operations leaders. No other provider we measured hit that on a senior cohort at small companies.
Wiza sat first in a 12-provider phone waterfall and caught most of the finds. That matters for how you read the number. The 96% is the share of Wiza's finds that were real UK mobiles. It says nothing about how many people Wiza missed, and it does not compare Wiza head to head with the providers below it.
Here is what the earlier runs showed for this cohort:
- Wiza: 96% mobile format on 458 MDs, 100% on 166 operations leaders. Placed first. Our pick for the first phone step on senior UK manufacturing lists.
- Forager: 100% mobile format on the small share of the 624 contacts it won after Wiza. Across our wider 2025 to 2026 data it held 100% in the UK, France, the Netherlands and Germany, and dropped to 85% on Nordic and Central and Eastern European lists.
- Datagma: 100% mobile format on its share of the 624 UK manufacturing contacts, also late in the waterfall. Its one dip in our UK data was 85% on 519 in-house legal contacts.
- ContactOut: few wins here, because Wiza caught most contacts first. Across the full first benchmark it returned 50% to 70% mobile format on MDs and CEOs at small companies, and 90% on operations staff.
Put a cleaner provider first and a finisher late. Keep ContactOut for operations staff, or run it last with a strict mobile filter on senior contacts.
Why do UK manufacturing lists fill up with switchboard numbers?
Senior people at smaller UK manufacturers often sit on the company's main line. Many providers scrape directories and LinkedIn contact fields, find that main line, and return it as a phone. Your fill rate looks great. Your reps reach reception.
That is why we judged our first benchmark on mobile format. Fill rate hides the problem. A switchboard counts as a fill and almost never reaches the MD. ContactOut's gap between 90% on operations staff and 50% to 70% on MDs at small companies fits that pattern. It pulls from the profile fields where main lines show up most.
Our advice is simple. Filter every UK number to +44 7 mobiles before anyone dials. It takes a minute in a spreadsheet and it removes the switchboards.
How often does a clean UK mobile reach the right person?
About 1 time in 5. In October 2026 we dialled 333 usable UK mobiles from Kaspr on live campaigns, and the right person answered on 71 of them. That is 21%.
This is UK-wide data across all our campaigns. It covers every sector we call. We do not have a dialled UK manufacturing cohort big enough to quote. But the UK result is the one any UK manufacturing team should plan around.
Here is the UK funnel from October 2026:
- 548 UK numbers came back from Kaspr.
- 359 were usable (66%). A mobile, in the UK, and not a number we already knew was bad. One in three failed before anyone dialled.
- We dialled 333.
- 71 reached the right person (21%). The rest rang out, went to voicemail or reached someone else.
Every one of those 333 numbers passed the same kind of check that made Wiza look so clean in our first benchmark. Right country, right format, a mobile. Four out of five still did not get us the person.
Some never had a chance. In a batch of 100 UK mobiles we checked in October 2026, 12 were not in service. Across all 1,195 B2B mobiles we checked that month, it was about 5%. No country we checked had more dead lines than the UK.
The UK sits near the bottom of the countries we call. Across all countries, 28% of dialled Kaspr mobiles reached the person (1,071 dialled, October 2026). Eficia came in at 26% (233 dialled). By country for Kaspr:
- Sweden: 43% (42 dialled).
- Denmark: 42% (59 dialled).
- Netherlands: 35% (106 dialled).
- Germany: 25% (87 dialled).
- France: 22% (46 dialled).
- UK: 21% (333 dialled).
- Switzerland: 20% (40 dialled).
The UK had the most dials and one of the lowest results. If you plan a UK call block on fill rate, you will plan for about five times the conversations you get. Plan on reached the person instead. For the Nordic side of this, see why phone beats email in the Nordics.
When we published our first benchmark in May 2026, we promised an accuracy layer. This is it. About 1 in 4 dialled usable mobiles reaches the right person from the two biggest European phone sources we use. In the UK, it is closer to 1 in 5.
What about the newer providers we tested in October 2026?
We ran five more providers and a cheap tier of six in October 2026, all through looot, the data gateway we run these providers through. None of those runs had a UK sample big enough to quote, so here is the European picture with its limits.
These providers ran on the hardest contacts, the ones Kaspr, and often Eficia, had already missed. Their rates show what is left after the big two. Read them that way. Here is what each returned in October 2026:
- Tomba: 63 usable from about 478 contacts (13%), about USD 0.05 per usable number. Cheapest by far. Best on Benelux and France.
- FullEnrich: 109 usable from 282 contacts (39%), about USD 0.75 per usable number. Strong on senior security in the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. Weak on mid-level staff at global companies after Eficia, 15 of 97.
- Lusha: 3 usable from about 75 contacts (4%), about USD 7.75 per usable number. Most hits were foreign mobiles and direct lines.
- Prospeo: 2 usable from about 97 contacts (2%), about USD 14 per usable number. It bills when it matches the person, even with no mobile.
- AI Ark: 0 usable from about 170 contacts. Its hits were neighbour-country or foreign mobiles.
- Cheap tier of six providers: about 3 usable from about 250 senior European contacts (about 1%). Mostly US numbers for US-based people. We dropped all six.
One cohort matters for manufacturing. On 14 Europe leaders at foreign-owned manufacturers, after Kaspr, the waterfall found 5 usable mobiles for USD 6.34 (October 2026). Many of these staff carry home-country numbers from India, the US or South Korea. If you sell into UK plants with foreign owners, expect more of those. A foreign number on a UK contact is usually the wrong number to call.
How should you build a UK manufacturing phone stack in 2026?
Keep the providers that work for you and add one or two where they are weak. Then check every number before your team dials. More providers find more numbers. More numbers also means more wrong ones.
Here is how we would set it up for senior UK manufacturing contacts:
- Put your cleanest senior provider first. In our first benchmark, that was Wiza on this cohort. Test yours on one list.
- Add a finisher for the gaps. Forager or Datagma held 100% mobile format late in the waterfall in our 2025 to 2026 data. Datagma costs more per credit.
- Filter on senior contacts. Run ContactOut last on MDs at small companies, or keep it for operations staff.
- Keep only +44 7 mobiles. Drop landlines, switchboards and foreign numbers before the dial.
- Log which provider found each number. You need it to cut weak steps and to answer a prospect who asks where you got their number.
- Check every number before the team dials. Format checks catch switchboards. They cannot tell you whether the MD picks up.
We cancelled Clay in April 2026. Our waterfall now runs in-house, built in Claude Code, ordered by cost per usable number. For the full design, read how to build a phone waterfall for Europe. It also covers why hit rate and pickup are two different numbers.
Switching providers rarely fixes wrong-person calls. Here is why Lusha and Kaspr mobiles reach the wrong person. A line check alone misses job changes and personal phones, as we show in the limits of HLR lookups.
What happens when you check UK numbers before dialling?
Your reps dial a shorter list and talk to more people. That is the job Answrd does. You upload the numbers your providers found. You get back the ones that pick up, with wrong and dead ones flagged.
You pay EUR 0.75 per verified number. Credits never expire. We never sell data, so we sit at the end of your waterfall and never compete with your providers. Your first 100 numbers are free, which is enough to test one UK call block.
To see what bad numbers cost your team today, try the pickup rate calculator.
Where do these numbers come from?
Our first benchmark. 624 enrichments on two UK manufacturing cohorts: 458 Managing Directors and 166 operations leaders. Both ran through a 12-provider phone waterfall. We logged phone format, country code and the provider behind every number. This sits inside our wider study of 15,000 enrichments, run in 2025 and 2026 and published in May 2026, across 28 companies and 12 countries. See the 2026 European B2B data enrichment study.
October 2026 data. Usable means a mobile, in the contact's own country, and not a number we already knew was bad. Reached the person means we dialled it on a live campaign and the right person answered. The UK figures cover all our UK campaigns, across every sector.
The caveats. The provider placed first sees every contact. The ones placed later only see what is left. So the win shares from our first benchmark measure position as much as quality. The October providers after Kaspr ran on the hardest contacts. Small samples carry their n every time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which provider is best for UK manufacturing mobile numbers?
In our 2025 to 2026 data, Wiza returned the cleanest mobiles: 96% on 458 UK manufacturing MDs and 100% on 166 operations leaders. It ran first, so this measures the quality of its finds. We did not test it head to head.
How many UK mobiles reach the right person?
About 1 in 5. In October 2026, 71 of 333 dialled usable UK Kaspr mobiles reached the right person, 21%. That figure covers all our UK campaigns, across every sector.
Why does ContactOut struggle on senior UK contacts?
It pulls from LinkedIn profile fields, where main lines show up on senior people at small companies. In the earlier runs it returned 50% to 70% mobile format on MDs and CEOs at small companies, against 90% on operations staff.
How do I clean UK numbers after enrichment?
Keep only +44 7 mobiles for UK contacts. Drop landlines, switchboards and foreign codes. Then check the rest before you dial, because format alone does not tell you who answers.
Should I add more providers to my UK waterfall?
Yes, where your current ones are weak. Track the new usable numbers each step adds and cut the ones that add nothing. Every provider you add also adds wrong numbers, so check the full list before the team dials.
Is UK retail any different?
The providers shift by persona. Read UK retail marketing data providers for that cohort.
Check your UK numbers before the next call block
Wiza, Forager and Datagma are the data providers that returned clean UK manufacturing mobiles in our first benchmark. Keep them. Filter switchboards, log every source, and plan your UK call blocks on reached the person. In the UK that is about 1 in 5.
Run your next UK list through a check before your reps dial. Test 100 numbers free, no card needed. If you would rather talk it through, book a 15-minute call.