Equipment & Plant Hire: business succession in the UK

Name: Equipment & Plant Hire business succession in the UK
Creator: ExitRadar
License: https://www.exitradar.co.uk/terms

3,189 UK equipment & plant hire companies (38.4%) have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured8,314

Director aged 60+3,189

Exposure rate38.4%

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

8,314

Companies measured

3,189

With a director 60+

1,147

With a director 70+

38.4%

Exposure rate

Of the 3,189 with a director over 60, 410 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.

Equipment & Plant Hire by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
North East	319	144	45.1%
East Midlands	569	241	42.4%
Scotland	566	237	41.9%
South West	754	311	41.2%
Yorkshire & The Humber	658	266	40.4%
Wales	405	158	39%
East of England	919	346	37.6%
West Midlands	777	291	37.5%
South East	1,261	471	37.4%
London	879	317	36.1%
North West	902	324	35.9%
Northern Ireland	302	82	27.2%

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

See UK Logistics & Fleet 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, "Equipment & Plant Hire: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 11 October 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/svc-plant-hire/

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.