Engineering Services: business succession in the UK

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

24,517 UK engineering services companies (35.4%) have a director aged 60 or over.

3.0 points above the all-trades average of 32.4%.

Companies measured69,254

Director aged 60+24,517

Exposure rate35.4%

Companies House register·Measured base 3,631,842·Data as at 11 October 2026·Full methodology

69,254

Companies measured

24,517

With a director 60+

7,835

With a director 70+

35.4%

Exposure rate

Of the 24,517 with a director over 60, 1,328 score 50 or higher on business quality. That figure is an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Engineering Services by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South East	9,515	3,852	40.5%
East of England	6,859	2,673	39%
South West	5,395	2,105	39%
Wales	2,359	909	38.5%
East Midlands	4,557	1,733	38%
Yorkshire & The Humber	4,479	1,660	37.1%
West Midlands	5,430	2,000	36.8%
North West	8,133	2,931	36%
Scotland	6,348	2,119	33.4%
Northern Ireland	1,259	386	30.7%
North East	3,033	888	29.3%
London	11,859	3,248	27.4%

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

See UK Professional Services →

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, "Engineering Services: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/prof-engineering/

Need a cut that is not published here, such as 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 3,631,842 active UK companies where Companies House records an age bracket for at least one serving director (94.0% of the 3,863,328 companies on the active register). A company counts as succession-exposed when its oldest serving director is 60 or over. We do not use 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 11 October 2026; updated quarterly, next update January 2027. Full methodology.