UK Business Succession Index

Plumbing, Heating & HVAC succession in South East

1,200 of 5,696 plumbing, heating & HVAC companies in South East — 21.1% — have a director aged 60 or over.

That is the 6th highest of 9 UK regions for this trade.

Companies measured5,696
Director aged 60+1,200
Exposure rate21.1%
Companies House register·Measured base 3,475,770·Data as at 13 August 2026·Full methodology
5,696
Companies measured
1,200
Director 60+
272
Director 70+
21.1%
Exposure rate

The UK average across all trades is 32.5%; plumbing, heating & HVAC nationally runs at 20.3%.

MeasureCompanies
Plumbing, Heating & HVAC companies in South East measured5,696
Oldest director aged 60 or over1,200
Oldest director aged 70 or over272

Of the 1,200 with a director over 60, 88 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Plumbing, Heating & HVAC in other regions

Region60+Rate
South West75124.5%
Scotland49222.9%
East Midlands46922.7%
West Midlands61122.7%
North West75221.5%
Wales26421.3%
East of England75620.5%
Yorkshire & The Humber55520.4%

Other trades in South East

Trade60+Rate
Consultancy Services14,45541.6%
Lettings9,87342.9%
Retail6,01526.7%
IT Services / Consultancy5,39225.7%
Investment5,38533.7%
Other Leisure5,36433.2%
Investment / Fund Management4,38040.3%
Property Development4,17046.3%

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 Plumbing, Heating & HVAC 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, "Plumbing, Heating & HVAC succession in South East", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/const-plumbing/south-east/

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.