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

3,072 UK equipment & plant hire companies — 38.8% — have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured7,921

Director aged 60+3,072

Exposure rate38.8%

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

7,921

Companies measured

3,072

With a director 60+

1,116

With a director 70+

38.8%

Exposure rate

Of the 3,072 with a director over 60, 363 score 50 or higher on business quality — 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	320	147	45.9%
Scotland	535	228	42.6%
South West	743	308	41.5%
Yorkshire & The Humber	656	270	41.2%
East Midlands	459	185	40.3%
Wales	422	168	39.8%
North West	873	338	38.7%
East of England	759	291	38.3%
South East	1,131	431	38.1%
London	1,033	375	36.3%
West Midlands	697	250	35.9%
Northern Ireland	291	80	27.5%

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, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/svc-plant-hire/

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.