Gen X at Work · Nobody tells you what the top is really like.
2026
Since 2016 the register has recorded when a person stops controlling a company, and those entries stay in the file. Across the 21,340 substantial British companies where a registered owner ceased control, the departing owner had a median age of 57, and 57.2 per cent were 55 or over when they let go. Employed chief executives leave at 59. Owners go two years earlier.
The count is mine, from two free Companies House bulk files processed in full on 28 September 2026. The register records that control ended, not why: sale, gift, retirement, illness and death file identically, and death cannot be separated out. Pick your sector and put in your age at the page.
Every individual person with significant control (25 per cent or more of shares or voting rights) recorded as having ceased control of an active British company, Companies House PSC snapshot of 26 September 2026 against the company snapshot of 1 September 2026. Substantial means a company filing full, group or medium accounts, above the small-company threshold. 21,340 such companies; 36,779 departing owners with a recorded birth year. Age is the year of cessation minus the year of birth.
My count Source: Magnus Wood, When British owners let go (Companies House PSC register, own count), 28 September 2026.