Gen X at Work · Generation X is running British companies.
2026
As a company gets more substantial, the person controlling it gets older, and this holds in every filing category. The median age of the person in control is 48 across 1,851,337 positions in micro-entities and 62 across 11,481 positions in companies filing full accounts, a gap of 14 years. The share aged 50 and over rises from 46.8 per cent to 82.5 per cent across the same two categories.
The count is mine, from Companies House bulk data processed in full on 27 September 2026. Part of the gradient is survivorship. Older companies are both larger and more likely to be controlled by someone who has been there a long time. That is the mechanism, and it is stated on the page rather than adjusted for.
Every live individual person with significant control of an active British company, by the accounts category of the company in the Companies House snapshot of 1 September 2026. 1,851,337 positions in micro-entities, 11,481 in companies filing full accounts. Age is 2026 minus birth year.
My count Source: Magnus Wood, Who controls British business, in The Years That Made Us (own count from the Companies House PSC register), 27 September 2026.