Agriculture: business succession in the UK

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

20,180 UK agriculture companies (53.1%) have a director aged 60 or over.

20.7 points above the all-trades average of 32.4%.

Companies measured38,033

Director aged 60+20,180

Exposure rate53.1%

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

38,033

Companies measured

20,180

With a director 60+

9,959

With a director 70+

53.1%

Exposure rate

Of the 20,180 with a director over 60, 2,429 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.

Agriculture by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
East Midlands	3,288	1,927	58.6%
East of England	4,721	2,742	58.1%
Yorkshire & The Humber	2,904	1,653	56.9%
South West	4,854	2,727	56.2%
South East	5,245	2,792	53.2%
North East	838	445	53.1%
Wales	1,904	994	52.2%
West Midlands	2,934	1,527	52%
Scotland	4,459	2,268	50.9%
North West	2,875	1,414	49.2%
Northern Ireland	1,691	789	46.7%
London	2,285	880	38.5%

Combinations with fewer than 250 measured companies are not listed separately. They are still counted in every total on this page.

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, "Agriculture: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/svc-agriculture/

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.