Civil Engineering: business succession in the UK

Name: Civil Engineering business succession in the UK
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

6,159 UK civil engineering companies — 30.7% — have a director aged 60 or over.

1.8 points below the all-trades average of 32.5%.

Companies measured20,062

Director aged 60+6,159

Exposure rate30.7%

Companies House register·Measured base 3,475,770·Data as at 13 August 2026·Full methodology

20,062

Companies measured

6,159

With a director 60+

1,916

With a director 70+

30.7%

Exposure rate

Of the 6,159 with a director over 60, 601 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Civil Engineering by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	1,542	584	37.9%
Wales	1,035	370	35.7%
Scotland	1,196	415	34.7%
West Midlands	1,594	534	33.5%
South East	2,595	849	32.7%
Yorkshire & The Humber	1,467	473	32.2%
East of England	1,958	628	32.1%
East Midlands	1,180	365	30.9%
North West	2,392	704	29.4%
Northern Ireland	634	180	28.4%
London	3,582	863	24.1%
North East	875	192	21.9%

Combinations with fewer than 250 measured companies are not listed separately. They are still counted in every total on this page.

Next step

This page counts director ages across the whole register. If you are looking to buy rather than to research, our Construction & Trades pages go further: we score each company on business quality and exit timing, and shortlist the ones worth approaching.

See UK Construction & Trades →

Part of the UK Business Succession Index.

Cite this page

These figures are free to quote and reproduce, including in commercial work, with attribution to ExitRadar and a link to this page.

ExitRadar, "Civil Engineering: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/const-civil/

Need a cut that is not published here — a different trade grouping, a finer geography, or the underlying distribution? Get in touch and we will usually provide it. Methodology.

Method. Figures cover the 3,475,770 active UK companies where Companies House records an age bracket for at least one serving director — 93.8% of the 3,706,712 companies on the active register. A company counts as succession-exposed when its oldest serving director is 60 or over — not the board average, which would hide a 70-year-old founder sitting alongside younger co-directors. The business-quality figure covers only the subset our model assesses — see the methodology for why that is far smaller than the number with filed accounts. Data as at 13 August 2026; updated quarterly, next update October 2026. Full methodology.