Commercial Cleaning: business succession in the UK

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

6,232 UK commercial cleaning companies — 21.2% — have a director aged 60 or over.

11.3 points below the all-trades average of 32.5%.

Companies measured29,450

Director aged 60+6,232

Exposure rate21.2%

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

29,450

Companies measured

6,232

With a director 60+

1,521

With a director 70+

21.2%

Exposure rate

Of the 6,232 with a director over 60, 622 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Commercial Cleaning by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
Northern Ireland	320	83	25.9%
North East	712	179	25.1%
South West	2,241	562	25.1%
Wales	951	217	22.8%
North West	2,862	646	22.6%
South East	4,183	931	22.3%
Scotland	1,616	357	22.1%
East of England	2,781	610	21.9%
East Midlands	1,489	321	21.6%
West Midlands	2,122	458	21.6%
Yorkshire & The Humber	1,999	425	21.3%
London	8,164	1,439	17.6%

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

See UK Facility & Field Services →

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, "Commercial Cleaning: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/svc-cleaning/

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.