Two in five South West trades businesses are quietly approaching a succession cliff
What the public record says about where the region's owner-managed trades businesses are heading, and what that means if you're trying to buy one.
Everyone in the acquisition world knows the retirement wave is coming. It's the standard line at every conference, and it's true. It's also close to useless on its own, because "a wave is coming" tells you nothing about which businesses, where they are, or how close they've got.
So I went looking for the specifics. I took every established, owner-managed trades and construction business in the South West, the plumbers and electricians and builders and scaffolders and decorators, and read what Companies House says about the people running them: their age, how long they've held the chair, and whether anyone younger has joined the board behind them.
The answer is sharper than the conference line suggests.
The headline
Of the region's established, owner-managed trades businesses, 39% meet all three of the following conditions today: the controlling director is 60 or older, they have held the chair for at least ten years, and there is no younger director appointed behind them.
That's roughly two in five, across more than five thousand real businesses. It describes who is running these companies right now, not a demographic trend arriving later this decade.
Worth being precise about that third condition, because it does a lot of work. What the record shows is the absence of a younger director on the board. An owner might have a successor in mind who hasn't been appointed yet, or a sale already in contemplation. Neither appears in a filing. "No successor visible" is an honest description of what I can see. "No succession plan" would not be.
And it isn't spread evenly.
Some trades are far more exposed than others
Broken down by trade, the range is wide, running from around 31% at the lower end to over 50% at the top. The most exposed trades in the region were:
- Painting and decorating, the single most exposed trade, with more than half of established owner-managed firms on the cliff.
- Scaffolding, close behind at almost one in two.
- Domestic building, and building completion and finishing, both sitting well above the average on much larger numbers. That makes them the biggest absolute pools of approaching-succession businesses in the region.
At the other end, trades like plastering and electrical installation come in closer to a third. Still significant, but noticeably less exposed.
The shape matters more than any single figure. The trades with the very highest rates, painting and scaffolding, are smaller populations, so those particular rates are best read as directional rather than precise. What holds across the whole set, and it's built on thousands of businesses, is that a large minority of established trades firms are being run by owners who are near the end of their tenure with nobody behind them.
This isn't a problem for "a few years' time"
The part that stood out most was the age profile of these owners. Among the businesses on the cliff, just over half have owners aged 60 to 64, which is the near edge of the problem. But nearly a quarter have owners aged 70 or over.
That older group is the sharp end. These aren't owners approaching a decision. They're well past the age most people retire, still running an established business, with no visible successor. For them, succession isn't coming. It has already arrived, and been left unanswered.
Why this matters if you're looking to buy
Most acquisition search starts with businesses that are already for sale. That's a thin end of the market. Good owner-managed trades businesses are rarely advertised, and by the time one reaches a broker it has been tidied up, priced up, and put in front of a dozen other people.
The businesses in this analysis aren't for sale. Most of their owners probably haven't decided to sell at all yet. What they have in common is that they're approaching the point where selling becomes the obvious answer. The buyer who understands that before the business hits the market is the one who gets an unhurried conversation, rather than a competitive auction.
The public record already says where those owners are. It's free, it's published, and it takes some work to read at scale. That's the whole advantage on offer here.
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On method: this is an aggregate analysis of published Companies House data. It describes patterns across the region's businesses, never individual companies or owners. "Established and owner-managed" means three or fewer active directors and a controlling director with ten or more years' tenure. "Approaching a succession cliff" means that director is 60 or over with no younger director appointed behind them. The point is the shape of the opportunity, not a list of names.