General Construction: business succession in the UK

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

19,812 UK general construction companies (27.8%) have a director aged 60 or over.

4.6 points below the all-trades average of 32.4%.

Companies measured71,199

Director aged 60+19,812

Exposure rate27.8%

Companies House register·Measured base 3,631,842·Data as at 11 October 2026·Full methodology

71,199

Companies measured

19,812

With a director 60+

6,209

With a director 70+

27.8%

Exposure rate

Of the 19,812 with a director over 60, 1,580 score 50 or higher on business quality. That figure is an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

General Construction by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
Scotland	2,583	1,046	40.5%
Northern Ireland	2,020	817	40.4%
South West	5,749	2,109	36.7%
Wales	2,290	811	35.4%
North East	1,252	425	33.9%
Yorkshire & The Humber	3,868	1,311	33.9%
North West	5,498	1,694	30.8%
South East	10,878	3,349	30.8%
West Midlands	5,302	1,607	30.3%
East Midlands	4,270	1,240	29%
East of England	8,841	2,531	28.6%
London	18,620	2,866	15.4%

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, "General Construction: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/const-general/

Need a cut that is not published here, such as 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 3,631,842 active UK companies where Companies House records an age bracket for at least one serving director (94.0% of the 3,863,328 companies on the active register). A company counts as succession-exposed when its oldest serving director is 60 or over. We do not use 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 11 October 2026; updated quarterly, next update January 2027. Full methodology.