Wood & Timber Products: business succession in the UK

Name: Wood & Timber Products business succession in the UK
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

1,725 UK wood & timber products companies — 35.2% — have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured4,902

Director aged 60+1,725

Exposure rate35.2%

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

4,902

Companies measured

1,725

With a director 60+

630

With a director 70+

35.2%

Exposure rate

Of the 1,725 with a director over 60, 168 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Wood & Timber Products by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
East Midlands	304	129	42.4%
North West	475	198	41.7%
Yorkshire & The Humber	449	186	41.4%
South West	538	212	39.4%
Wales	272	101	37.1%
Scotland	345	123	35.7%
West Midlands	485	172	35.5%
East of England	462	161	34.8%
South East	676	207	30.6%
London	664	139	20.9%

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, "Wood & Timber Products: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/mfg-wood/

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.