UK Business Succession Index

Pharmaceuticals / Biotech succession in South East

279 of 740 pharmaceuticals / biotech companies in South East — 37.7% — have a director aged 60 or over.

Companies measured740
Director aged 60+279
Exposure rate37.7%
Companies House register·Measured base 3,475,770·Data as at 13 August 2026·Full methodology
740
Companies measured
279
Director 60+
95
Director 70+
37.7%
Exposure rate

The UK average across all trades is 32.5%; pharmaceuticals / biotech nationally runs at 30.2%.

MeasureCompanies
Pharmaceuticals / Biotech companies in South East measured740
Oldest director aged 60 or over279
Oldest director aged 70 or over95

Of the 279 with a director over 60, 19 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Pharmaceuticals / Biotech in other regions

Region60+Rate
East of England16736.4%
Scotland9633.3%
London55029.7%
East Midlands8026.4%
North West20026.2%
Yorkshire & The Humber9221.3%
West Midlands11620.6%

Other trades in South East

Trade60+Rate
Consultancy Services14,45541.6%
Lettings9,87342.9%
Retail6,01526.7%
IT Services / Consultancy5,39225.7%
Investment5,38533.7%
Other Leisure5,36433.2%
Investment / Fund Management4,38040.3%
Property Development4,17046.3%

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

See UK Manufacturing →

See all Pharmaceuticals / Biotech succession data or everything in South East.

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, "Pharmaceuticals / Biotech succession in South East", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/mfg-pharma/south-east/

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.