Early Years / Pre-Primary: business succession in the UK

Name: Early Years / Pre-Primary business succession in the UK
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

1,651 UK early years / pre-primary companies — 32.8% — have a director aged 60 or over.

0.3 points above the all-trades average of 32.5%.

Companies measured5,040

Director aged 60+1,651

Exposure rate32.8%

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

5,040

Companies measured

1,651

With a director 60+

559

With a director 70+

32.8%

Exposure rate

Of the 1,651 with a director over 60, 277 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Early Years / Pre-Primary by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
Scotland	280	126	45%
East Midlands	286	108	37.8%
South West	356	131	36.8%
South East	676	235	34.8%
East of England	425	140	32.9%
Yorkshire & The Humber	318	101	31.8%
North West	637	201	31.6%
West Midlands	420	130	31%
London	1,316	379	28.8%

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

See UK Education & Training →

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, "Early Years / Pre-Primary: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/svc-education-early-years/

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.