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

1,679 UK early years / pre-primary companies (32.3%) have a director aged 60 or over.

0.1 points below the all-trades average of 32.4%.

Companies measured5,205

Director aged 60+1,679

Exposure rate32.3%

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

5,205

Companies measured

1,679

With a director 60+

566

With a director 70+

32.3%

Exposure rate

Of the 1,679 with a director over 60, 310 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.

Early Years / Pre-Primary by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
Scotland	280	123	43.9%
East Midlands	362	141	39%
South West	357	135	37.8%
East of England	536	180	33.6%
South East	756	254	33.6%
North West	632	191	30.2%
West Midlands	445	132	29.7%
Yorkshire & The Humber	320	94	29.4%
London	1,192	331	27.8%

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, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/svc-education-early-years/

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.