Chemicals & Coatings: business succession in the UK

Name: Chemicals & Coatings business succession in the UK
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

2,323 UK chemicals & coatings companies — 42.5% — have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured5,464

Director aged 60+2,323

Exposure rate42.5%

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

5,464

Companies measured

2,323

With a director 60+

942

With a director 70+

42.5%

Exposure rate

Of the 2,323 with a director over 60, 174 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Chemicals & Coatings by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	366	195	53.3%
North West	692	347	50.1%
East Midlands	283	141	49.8%
South East	589	285	48.4%
Yorkshire & The Humber	459	216	47.1%
Scotland	286	116	40.6%
East of England	516	208	40.3%
West Midlands	637	241	37.8%
London	1,149	341	29.7%

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

See UK Manufacturing →

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, "Chemicals & Coatings: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/mfg-chemicals/

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.