Retail succession in South East

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

6,015 of 22,490 retail companies in South East — 26.7% — have a director aged 60 or over.

That is the 3rd highest of 12 UK regions for this trade.

Companies measured22,490

Director aged 60+6,015

Exposure rate26.7%

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

22,490

Companies measured

6,015

Director 60+

2,052

Director 70+

26.7%

Exposure rate

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

Measure	Companies
Retail companies in South East measured	22,490
Oldest director aged 60 or over	6,015
Oldest director aged 70 or over	2,052

Of the 6,015 with a director over 60, 408 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%
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%
Yorkshire & The Humber	3,302	23%

Other trades in South East

Trade	60+	Rate
Consultancy Services	14,455	41.6%
Lettings	9,873	42.9%
IT Services / Consultancy	5,392	25.7%
Investment	5,385	33.7%
Other Leisure	5,364	33.2%
Investment / Fund Management	4,380	40.3%
Property Development	4,170	46.3%
Media	3,602	31.6%

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 South 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 South East", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/retail-store/south-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.