Retail succession in Wales

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

1,627 of 5,839 retail companies in Wales (27.9%) have a director aged 60 or over.

That is the 2nd highest of 12 UK regions for this trade.

Companies measured5,839

Director aged 60+1,627

Exposure rate27.9%

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

5,839

Companies measured

1,627

Director 60+

593

Director 70+

27.9%

Exposure rate

The UK average across all trades is 32.4%; retail nationally runs at 21.7%.

Measure	Companies
Retail companies in Wales measured	5,839
Oldest director aged 60 or over	1,627
Oldest director aged 70 or over	593

Of the 1,627 with a director over 60, 156 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.

Retail in other regions

Region	60+	Rate
South West	4,219	31.7%
South East	7,147	27.8%
Northern Ireland	1,052	25.8%
Scotland	2,697	25.3%
East Midlands	3,005	24.6%
North East	1,130	23.6%
East of England	4,241	23.4%
Yorkshire & The Humber	3,236	22.5%

Other trades in Wales

Trade	60+	Rate
Lettings	2,189	37.5%
Consultancy Services	1,911	39.6%
Other Leisure	1,335	36.6%
Investment	1,044	31.1%
Agriculture	994	52.2%
Hotel / Accommodation	942	48.3%
Investment / Fund Management	931	38.9%
Engineering Services	909	38.5%

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 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 Wales.

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 Wales", UK Business Succession Index, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/retail-store/wales/

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.