Retail succession in North East

Name: Retail business succession in North East
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

1,165 of 4,768 retail companies in North East — 24.4% — have a director aged 60 or over.

That is the 7th highest of 12 UK regions for this trade.

Companies measured4,768

Director aged 60+1,165

Exposure rate24.4%

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

4,768

Companies measured

1,165

Director 60+

375

Director 70+

24.4%

Exposure rate

The UK average across all trades is 32.5%; retail nationally runs at 21.9%.

Measure	Companies
Retail companies in North East measured	4,768
Oldest director aged 60 or over	1,165
Oldest director aged 70 or over	375

Of the 1,165 with a director over 60, 93 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Retail in other regions

Region	60+	Rate
South West	4,239	32%
Wales	1,764	29.8%
South East	6,015	26.7%
Scotland	2,680	25.9%
Northern Ireland	1,010	25.8%
East of England	3,692	25%
East Midlands	2,468	23.9%
Yorkshire & The Humber	3,302	23%

Other trades in North East

Trade	60+	Rate
Lettings	1,725	34.4%
Consultancy Services	1,553	37.6%
Engineering Services	920	30.2%
Other Leisure	917	30.5%
Investment	915	27.3%
Investment / Fund Management	662	35.9%
Property Development	616	42.7%
Management	547	38.7%

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

See UK Retail →

See all Retail succession data or everything in North 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, "Retail succession in North East", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/retail-store/north-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.