Property Development: business succession in the UK

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

27,387 UK property development companies — 43% — have a director aged 60 or over.

10.5 points above the all-trades average of 32.5%.

Companies measured63,623

Director aged 60+27,387

Exposure rate43%

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

63,623

Companies measured

27,387

With a director 60+

10,920

With a director 70+

43%

Exposure rate

Of the 27,387 with a director over 60, 1,277 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Property Development by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	5,640	2,716	48.2%
Scotland	2,687	1,249	46.5%
Northern Ireland	1,518	703	46.3%
South East	8,999	4,170	46.3%
East of England	5,814	2,647	45.5%
Wales	2,110	919	43.6%
West Midlands	4,608	1,996	43.3%
North East	1,442	616	42.7%
London	17,073	6,971	40.8%
East Midlands	3,316	1,344	40.5%
Yorkshire & The Humber	4,052	1,621	40%
North West	6,338	2,418	38.2%

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, "Property Development: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/const-property-dev/

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.