Other Specialist Trades: business succession in the UK

Name: Other Specialist Trades business succession in the UK
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

17,265 UK other specialist trades companies — 27.5% — have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured62,723

Director aged 60+17,265

Exposure rate27.5%

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

62,723

Companies measured

17,265

With a director 60+

4,338

With a director 70+

27.5%

Exposure rate

Of the 17,265 with a director over 60, 1,339 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Other Specialist Trades by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	4,744	1,606	33.9%
South East	9,023	2,901	32.2%
Wales	2,049	658	32.1%
Scotland	2,923	886	30.3%
East Midlands	3,378	1,014	30%
Yorkshire & The Humber	4,351	1,297	29.8%
North West	6,091	1,794	29.5%
East of England	6,643	1,911	28.8%
West Midlands	4,567	1,314	28.8%
North East	1,835	490	26.7%
Northern Ireland	1,033	275	26.6%
London	16,063	3,112	19.4%

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, "Other Specialist Trades: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/const-other-specialist/

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.