Marketing: business succession in the UK

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

8,219 UK marketing companies (20.3%) have a director aged 60 or over.

12.1 points below the all-trades average of 32.4%.

Companies measured40,460

Director aged 60+8,219

Exposure rate20.3%

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

40,460

Companies measured

8,219

With a director 60+

2,250

With a director 70+

20.3%

Exposure rate

Of the 8,219 with a director over 60, 399 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.

Marketing by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
South West	2,541	676	26.6%
South East	5,995	1,532	25.6%
Northern Ireland	407	97	23.8%
East of England	3,924	886	22.6%
East Midlands	1,810	408	22.5%
West Midlands	2,564	554	21.6%
Yorkshire & The Humber	2,238	456	20.4%
Wales	822	166	20.2%
Scotland	1,323	265	20%
North East	727	141	19.4%
North West	3,879	694	17.9%
London	14,212	2,340	16.5%

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

See UK Marketing & Creative →

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

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.