Retail succession in North West

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

4,799 of 22,959 retail companies in North West — 20.9% — have a director aged 60 or over.

That is the 10th highest of 12 UK regions for this trade.

Companies measured22,959

Director aged 60+4,799

Exposure rate20.9%

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

22,959

Companies measured

4,799

Director 60+

1,529

Director 70+

20.9%

Exposure rate

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

Measure	Companies
Retail companies in North West measured	22,959
Oldest director aged 60 or over	4,799
Oldest director aged 70 or over	1,529

Of the 4,799 with a director over 60, 295 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%
North East	1,165	24.4%
East Midlands	2,468	23.9%

Other trades in North West

Trade	60+	Rate
Consultancy Services	7,209	34.6%
Lettings	7,207	34.4%
Investment	3,734	25.9%
Other Leisure	3,553	27.8%
Investment / Fund Management	3,287	36%
Engineering Services	3,003	36.5%
Property Development	2,418	38.2%
IT Services / Consultancy	2,244	20.4%

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 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 West.

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 West", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/retail-store/north-west/

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.