Recruitment / Staffing: business succession in the UK

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

7,320 UK recruitment / staffing companies — 19.4% — have a director aged 60 or over.

13.1 points below the all-trades average of 32.5%.

Companies measured37,819

Director aged 60+7,320

Exposure rate19.4%

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

37,819

Companies measured

7,320

With a director 60+

1,654

With a director 70+

19.4%

Exposure rate

Of the 7,320 with a director over 60, 307 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Recruitment / Staffing by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
Scotland	1,151	281	24.4%
Wales	788	186	23.6%
South East	5,558	1,240	22.3%
South West	2,275	506	22.2%
East of England	3,266	709	21.7%
East Midlands	1,727	346	20%
North East	758	143	18.9%
Northern Ireland	327	59	18%
London	12,801	2,285	17.9%
West Midlands	3,023	530	17.5%
Yorkshire & The Humber	2,402	417	17.4%
North West	3,715	613	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 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, "Recruitment / Staffing: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/prof-recruitment/

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.