Restaurant / Cafe: business succession in the UK

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

13,998 UK restaurant / cafe companies — 18.2% — have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured76,722

Director aged 60+13,998

Exposure rate18.2%

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

76,722

Companies measured

13,998

With a director 60+

3,733

With a director 70+

18.2%

Exposure rate

Of the 13,998 with a director over 60, 1,128 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Restaurant / Cafe by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	5,471	1,267	23.2%
Scotland	6,062	1,295	21.4%
Wales	2,861	610	21.3%
South East	8,407	1,690	20.1%
North East	2,521	504	20%
East of England	5,310	1,010	19%
East Midlands	3,660	656	17.9%
North West	7,617	1,337	17.6%
Yorkshire & The Humber	5,496	931	16.9%
Northern Ireland	1,648	272	16.5%
London	21,779	3,526	16.2%
West Midlands	5,870	893	15.2%

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 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, "Restaurant / Cafe: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/hosp-restaurant/

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.