WP_User_Query Search Forms and Retrieving Custom Fields

Hi,

I am trying to build a search form for a site I am building that uses the WP_User_Query to return results about registered users. I have created 5 new roles and I have also created numerous profile fields such as phone number, company name, city, etc. What I want to be able to do is create a search form that can filter my users based on those custom fields. I currently have a search form that can find all users regardless of their roles. However, if I search for company name, or even first name, I get no results.

Here is the code I have used so far, which I got from a tutorial on smashing magazine.com:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Simple User Listing
Plugin URI:
Description: Create a shortcode to list WordPress users
Author: Ryan
Version: 1.0
Author URI: https://www.rayanzenner.com
*/

function sul_user_listing($atts, $content = null) {
	global $wpdb;

	extract(shortcode_atts(array(
		"role" => '',
		"number" => 3,
		), $atts));

	$role = sanitize_text_field($role);
	$number = sanitize_text_field($number); 

	ob_start();

	$search = (isset($_GET['as'])) ? sanitize_text_field($_GET['as']) : false;

	$page = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;

	$offset = ($page - 1) * $number;

	if($search) {
	$args = array(
		'role' => '',
		'search' => '*' . $search . '*'
	);
	$my_users = new WP_User_Query($args);
	}
	else {
	$my_users = new WP_User_Query(
		array(
			'role' => '',
			'offset' => $offset,
			'number' => $number,
			'meta_key' => 'company_name',
			'orderby' => 'meta_value',
			'order' => 'ASC'
		));
	}
	$total_authors = $my_users->total_users;

	$total_pages = intval(ceil($total_authors / $number)) + 1;

	$authors = $my_users->get_results();

        $userid = get_current_user_id();
	// Create a function to display post count for custom post types
    function count_user_posts_by_type($userid, $post_type = 'post', $post_type_2 = 'projects_posts', $post_type_3 = 'commercial_posts', $post_type_4 = 'removals_posts', $post_type_5 = 'perishables_posts', $post_type_6 = 'exhibitions_posts', $post_status = 'publish') {

	    global $wpdb;
	    $query = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_author = $userid AND (post_type = '$post_type' OR post_type='$post_type_2' OR post_type='$post_type_3' OR post_type='$post_type_4' OR post_type='$post_type_5' OR post_type='$post_type_6') AND post_status = '$post_status'";
	    $count = $wpdb->get_var($query);
	    return apply_filters('get_usernumposts', $count, $userid);

	} 

?>
	<div class="author-search">
		<h2>Search authors by name</h2>
		<form method="get" id="sul-searchform" action="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" role="form">
			<label for="as" class="assistive-text">Search</label>
			<input type="text" class="form-control" name="as" id="sul-s" placeholder="Search Members">
			<input type="submit" class="grey-btn" name="submit" id="sul-searchsubmit" value="Search Members">
		</form>
	</div><!-- author-search -->

<?php if(!empty($authors)) { ?>
	<div class="table-responsive">
	<table class="table table-striped">
		<thead class="aio-members-directory">
			<tr>
				<th>Logo</th>
				<th>Company Name</th>
				<th>City</th>
				<th>Country</th>
			</tr>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
	<?php
	foreach($authors as $author) {
		$author_info = get_userdata($author->ID);
		?>
		<tr>
			<td class="member-logo-image">
				<img class="member-profile-img small-image-bg" src="<?php echo $author_info->image; ?>" alt="User image" />
			</td>
			<td>
			<p><a>ID); ?>"><?php echo $author_info->company_name; ?></a></p>
			<p><?php echo count_user_posts_by_type($author->ID); ?> posts</p>
			</td>
			<td>
			<p><?php echo $author_info->user_city; ?></p>
			</td>
			<td>
				<?php echo $author_info->user_country; ?>
			</td>
			<?php }  ?>
		</tr>
		</tbody>
	</table><!-- .author-list -->
	</div><!-- . table-responsive -->

Quite a lot code here and thats not all of it. As you can see, I can retrieve the user meta data after the search has been performed. I can even order the default list by custom profile fields, as you will notice. However, if I type in a search term such as ‘Bangkok’ for city, nothing is displayed.

I know I am probably just doing something fundamentally wrong, but my PHP skills are not advanced enough to figure it out.

How can I get these custom fields form a search query? There must be a way.

Any help greatly appreciated.