Fitness / Sports: business succession in the UK

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

4,700 UK fitness / sports companies — 23.8% — have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured19,768

Director aged 60+4,700

Exposure rate23.8%

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

19,768

Companies measured

4,700

With a director 60+

2,024

With a director 70+

23.8%

Exposure rate

Of the 4,700 with a director over 60, 546 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Fitness / Sports by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	1,675	477	28.5%
Wales	875	245	28%
Yorkshire & The Humber	1,389	364	26.2%
East Midlands	1,031	268	26%
West Midlands	1,367	356	26%
South East	2,820	716	25.4%
East of England	1,734	429	24.7%
Scotland	1,220	299	24.5%
North East	595	145	24.4%
North West	2,189	500	22.8%
Northern Ireland	439	86	19.6%
London	4,424	808	18.3%

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 Hospitality & Leisure pages go further: we score each company on business quality and exit timing, and shortlist the ones worth approaching.

See UK Hospitality & Leisure →

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, "Fitness / Sports: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/hosp-fitness/

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.