Restaurant / Cafe succession in Scotland

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

1,295 of 6,062 restaurant / cafe companies in Scotland — 21.4% — have a director aged 60 or over.

That is the 2nd highest of 11 UK regions for this trade.

Companies measured6,062

Director aged 60+1,295

Exposure rate21.4%

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

6,062

Companies measured

1,295

Director 60+

323

Director 70+

21.4%

Exposure rate

The UK average across all trades is 32.5%; restaurant / cafe nationally runs at 18.2%.

Measure	Companies
Restaurant / Cafe companies in Scotland measured	6,062
Oldest director aged 60 or over	1,295
Oldest director aged 70 or over	323

Of the 1,295 with a director over 60, 119 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 in other regions

Region	60+	Rate
South West	1,267	23.2%
Wales	610	21.3%
South East	1,690	20.1%
North East	504	20%
East of England	1,010	19%
East Midlands	656	17.9%
North West	1,337	17.6%
Yorkshire & The Humber	931	16.9%

Other trades in Scotland

Trade	60+	Rate
Lettings	3,930	37.6%
Consultancy Services	3,898	40.8%
Retail	2,680	25.9%
Agriculture	2,266	51.5%
Other Leisure	2,250	32.8%
Investment	2,104	33.7%
Engineering Services	2,065	33.5%
Investment / Fund Management	1,505	40.7%

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 →

See all Restaurant / Cafe succession data or everything in Scotland.

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 succession in Scotland", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/hosp-restaurant/scotland/

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.