The Evidence
UK Business Exit Data
The real numbers behind UK business exits. No opinions. No projections. Just independently verified market evidence.
7,690
completed deals in 2024
Experian MarketIQ
£287bn
total transaction value
Experian MarketIQ
88%
sub-£100m transactions
Experian MarketIQ
The Market Around You
Most UK business owners never see the full picture of what’s happening in the market around them.
In 2024, Experian MarketIQ recorded 7,690 completed deals across the UK — an 11% increase on the prior year. The total value of those transactions reached £287 billion, up 50% year on year. October 2024 was the single busiest month for deal completions on Experian’s records, as owners moved to complete ahead of the first Business Asset Disposal Relief rate increase.
The first three quarters of 2025 told a different story. Deal volumes fell 13% year on year to 4,719 transactions, with total value dropping to £132 billion. Large-cap deals over £1 billion fell 40%. But the composition of the market held: sub-£100 million transactions — the deals that look like yours — still accounted for 88% of all disclosed-value activity.
In a single tax year, HMRC processed 39,000 claims for Business Asset Disposal Relief on £10.3 billion in capital gains. That figure has been remarkably consistent across multiple tax years — roughly 39,000 UK business owners reaching the point of a taxable exit, every year.
Every one of them had to answer the same question: was the business ready?
39,000
UK business owners claimed exit tax relief in a single year — on £10.3bn in capital gains
HMRC Capital Gains Tax Statistics, July 2025
Sector by Sector
In every sector TrueWorth covers, consolidation is not theoretical. Named organisations are spending real capital, acquiring real businesses, right now.
Dental Practices
+2.9% average price growth in 2025
First-time buyers accounted for 33% of dental transactions in 2025, with corporates returning to the market at around 20% of the pipeline. Three groups — mydentist, BUPA Dental Care, and PortmanDentex — still control over 1,250 practices between them. Improved lending conditions are bringing younger clinicians into practice ownership earlier.
Business Outlook 2026, Dental Sector Review
Pharmacy
590 pharmacies transacted in 2025 — worth £869m combined
A record year for pharmacy transactions. Seller instructions from corporates and multiples rose to 71% of mandates — a reversal from the prior year when independents dominated. Expanding independents led completions at 44%, with first-time buyers at 29%. The March 2025 government funding announcement stabilised goodwill values.
Business Outlook 2026, Pharmacy Sector Review; Hutchings Consultants England Pharmacy Market Report 2025
Care Homes
+7.1% average price growth in 2025
Occupancy exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Distressed cases fell 22%, while homes on market dropped 15% — suggesting fewer forced sales and healthier operators. US REIT capital entered the UK market at scale, led by Welltower’s acquisitions including the £5.2 billion Barchester Healthcare deal. Over £12 billion was invested in UK healthcare real estate in 2025 — approximately four times the five-year average.
Business Outlook 2026, Care Sector Review; Savills UK Healthcare Roundup, February 2026
Day Nurseries
+52% increase in childcare lending instructions in 2025
Large groups with 21 or more settings accounted for 62% of nursery transactions. Average prices rose 3.8%. Around 80% of settings remain independently owned, but the consolidators are moving fast — Kids Planet was named the most active acquirer in the North West by Experian, and Fennies secured £45 million from Mantra Capital for expansion.
Business Outlook 2026, Childcare Sector Review; Savills Children’s Day Nursery Market Update 2025
Legal Services
150+ law firm transactions in 2024 — consolidation accelerating
Private equity investment in UK law firms reached a record £534 million in 2024, up 42% year on year. Cumulative PE investment over five years exceeded £1.2 billion. The 2025 outlook was characterised in one word by sector specialists: “consolidation.” More buyers, fewer sellers, with PE investors targeting scalable mid-tier and boutique firms.
Acquira Professional Services Research, January 2025; Legal Futures
Veterinary Practices
CMA: market “not functioning effectively” — final decision expected early 2026
The Competition and Markets Authority published provisional findings in October 2025 confirming corporate ownership has risen from roughly 10% in 2013 to around 60% today. IVC Evidensia operates more than 900 UK practices; CVS Group runs approximately 470. The CMA proposed 21 measures to increase competition.
CMA Veterinary Market Investigation — Provisional Findings, October 2025
IT Services
466 MSP deals globally in 2025 — up ~20% year on year
The managed services provider sub-sector saw 108 deals in Q3 2025 alone, a 17% increase quarter on quarter. Cybersecurity, cloud transformation, and compliance capabilities are now central to MSP valuations. The top 10 strategic buyers each acquired five or more MSPs since late 2023.
Drake Star MSP Market Update, Full Year 2025
Recruitment
58 UK deals in first three quarters of 2025 — approaching full-year 2024 total
Deal volumes rose 32% on the same period in 2024. Private equity accounted for roughly a third of Q3 deals, mainly as bolt-on acquisitions. Tech-led recruitment platforms remain the leading segment. The valuation expectation gap between buyers and sellers has narrowed since the post-Covid boom.
RSM UK Recruitment Sector M&A Quarterly Update, Q3 2025
88%
of UK deals by disclosed value are sub-£100m — the SME market
Experian MarketIQ H1 2025
The Tax Clock Is Ticking
Business Asset Disposal Relief — the tax relief that reduces Capital Gains Tax on qualifying business sales — is becoming less generous on a legislated schedule. The effective rate rose from 10% to 14% in April 2025, and rises again to 18% in April 2026.
The behavioural response was immediate. October 2024 was the highest-volume month for deal completions in Experian’s entire dataset — a clear signal that owners brought exits forward ahead of the first rate increase. The subsequent 13% drop in 2025 deal volumes suggests some of that demand was pulled forward rather than representing net new activity.
This does not mean every owner should rush. But it does mean the financial terms of an exit are shifting, and the direction is not in the seller’s favour.
10%
Pre-April 2025
Was14%
April 2025
Now18%
April 2026
NextBADR rate schedule. Lifetime limit: £1m
HMRC / Finance Act / OBR
The Readiness Gap
Six independent UK studies — conducted by different organisations, with different methodologies — reach the same conclusion.
Only
9%
businesses with fully integrated succession planning
Meanwhile, across five other studies:
Capital on Tap, September 2025
Business owners with no exit strategy at all
STEP
Business owners with no succession plan
Hymans Robertson
Business owners with no formal exit plan
Armstrong Watson, July 2025
Next generation involved but hasn’t discussed succession
Charles Stanley, 2025
Business owners with no exit strategy
No single survey is definitive. But when six separate studies all land in the same range, the signal is clear.
Somewhere between 60% and 80% of UK business owners enter a deal process without a structured understanding of how buyers would evaluate their business.
Where Deals Fall Apart
The preparation gap matters because deals fail for predictable reasons — and most of them are discoverable before a buyer ever enters the room.
Dealsuite, analysing UK and Ireland deal activity in H1 2025, found that 29% of sell-side mandates result in a discontinued transaction. The single most common reason: 54% of M&A advisors cite unrealistic valuation expectations from the seller.
29%
of UK deal mandates fail — 54% due to unrealistic seller valuation expectations
Dealsuite UK&I M&A Monitor, August 2025
And the valuation gap is wider than most owners think.
£200k EBITDA
3.1×
UK Median
4.5×
↓ from 5.5× in 2024
£10m EBITDA
8.5×
£200k EBITDA
3.1×
UK Median
4.5×
↓ from 5.5× in 2024
£10m EBITDA
8.5×
Sources: Dealsuite UK&I M&A Monitor H1 2025; UK200Group / MarktoMarket SME Valuation Index, November 2025
The size-multiple relationship is one of the most consistently misunderstood dynamics in SME transactions. Most owners expect a number closer to what they read about in headlines. The market tells a different story.
Every statistic on this page points to the same question: if a sophisticated buyer looked at your business today, what would they actually see?
Not what you hope they’d see. Not what your accountant assumes. What a buyer — with capital to deploy and alternatives to consider — would conclude after reviewing your operations, your revenue, your team dependency, your legal position, and your financial trail.
That is what TrueWorth’s free assessment is designed to answer.
Built on real M&A methodology, grounded in how UK acquirers actually evaluate businesses, and written in language you can act on — not jargon you need a translator for.
Ten minutes. Five pillars. The buyer’s perspective on your business — before you’re in the room.
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