UK Business Succession Index

Painting & Decorating succession in South East

416 of 1,610 painting & decorating companies in South East (25.8%) have a director aged 60 or over.

Companies measured1,610
Director aged 60+416
Exposure rate25.8%
Companies House register·Measured base 3,631,842·Data as at 11 October 2026·Full methodology
1,610
Companies measured
416
Director 60+
58
Director 70+
25.8%
Exposure rate

The UK average across all trades is 32.4%; painting & decorating nationally runs at 24.2%.

MeasureCompanies
Painting & Decorating companies in South East measured1,610
Oldest director aged 60 or over416
Oldest director aged 70 or over58

Of the 416 with a director over 60, 36 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.

Painting & Decorating in other regions

Region60+Rate
North West26730.6%
West Midlands19130.4%
South West21630%
Wales7429.4%
North East7428.4%
Yorkshire & The Humber16527.5%
Scotland18427.1%
East Midlands14725.7%

Other trades in South East

Trade60+Rate
Consultancy Services16,02541.1%
Lettings11,04442%
Retail7,14727.8%
Investment6,09333.4%
IT Services / Consultancy5,86125.1%
Other Leisure5,83133.2%
Investment / Fund Management5,13439.8%
Property Development4,66546%

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 →

See all Painting & Decorating succession data or everything in South East.

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, "Painting & Decorating succession in South East", UK Business Succession Index, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/const-painting/south-east/

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.