Wholesale Agent: business succession in the UK

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

7,932 UK wholesale agent companies — 33.4% — have a director aged 60 or over.

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

Companies measured23,753

Director aged 60+7,932

Exposure rate33.4%

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

23,753

Companies measured

7,932

With a director 60+

2,844

With a director 70+

33.4%

Exposure rate

Of the 7,932 with a director over 60, 406 score 50 or higher on business quality — an output of our own scoring model, not a Companies House figure. How we score it.

Wholesale Agent by region

Region	Companies	60+	Rate
Scotland	946	421	44.5%
South West	1,355	598	44.1%
Yorkshire & The Humber	1,452	623	42.9%
Wales	594	244	41.1%
South East	2,663	1,071	40.2%
East Midlands	1,217	465	38.2%
North East	410	153	37.3%
East of England	1,947	692	35.5%
North West	2,412	847	35.1%
Northern Ireland	663	211	31.8%
West Midlands	2,672	734	27.5%
London	7,418	1,870	25.2%

Combinations with fewer than 250 measured companies are not listed separately. They are still counted in every total on this page.

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, "Wholesale Agent: business succession in the UK", UK Business Succession Index, 13 August 2026. https://www.exitradar.co.uk/succession/wholesale-agent/

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.