If you've built a business in Maidstone or Tonbridge and you're starting to think about stepping back, most of what you'll read about selling is written for anywhere. That's fair, because the process is the same in Kent as in the rest of England. What's local is the mix of businesses around you, and the people likely to buy yours.
The Office for National Statistics published its count of Kent's businesses in September 2026. Here's what it shows and what it means for an owner thinking of selling, along with the things that are different about selling here in practice. For the steps themselves, our guide to how to sell a business covers them in order.
Which Kent these figures cover
"Kent" means different things in different statistics. This guide uses the area covered by Kent County Council, which is made up of 12 districts, from Dartford and Sevenoaks in the west to Thanet and Dover in the east. Medway has its own unitary council and is counted separately, so its figures are given alongside where they help.
The figures come from the ONS UK Business Counts for 2026, released on 24 September 2026. They're a snapshot of the government's register of businesses taken on 13 March 2026, and they count businesses registered for VAT or PAYE. The very smallest businesses, with no staff and turnover below the VAT threshold, aren't included. The ONS rounds the counts, so they may not add up exactly.
Kent's businesses by size
In March 2026 there were 66,805 businesses in the Kent County Council area, up from 65,370 a year earlier. That's a rise of 2.2%, a little faster than the 1.9% rise across the UK. Medway had a further 9,345, which makes about 76,150 across Kent and Medway together. Most of Kent's businesses are very small.
| Number of employees | Kent businesses | Share of Kent | Share of England |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 4 | 53,165 | 79.6% | 78.5% |
| 5 to 9 | 7,000 | 10.5% | 10.8% |
| 10 to 49 | 5,470 | 8.2% | 8.7% |
| 50 to 249 | 970 | 1.5% | 1.6% |
| 250 or more | 205 | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| All businesses | 66,805 | 100% | 100% |
Fewer than one Kent business in ten employs 10 people or more. If yours has a settled team and a manager, it's one of about 6,440 businesses in the county with 10 to 249 staff. That's the pool a buyer looking for an established Kent business with a team is choosing from.
Four in five Kent businesses are companies, 53,240 of them. The rest are mostly sole traders and partnerships. For a company owner, selling usually means either selling your shares or having the company sell its business and assets. For a sole trader, it means selling the business and its assets directly.
Where Kent's businesses are
Eight of the 12 districts have more than 5,000 businesses each, led by Maidstone with 8,300. The four with fewer are Thanet, Gravesham, Folkestone and Hythe, and Dover. Tonbridge and Malling, which takes in Kings Hill and West Malling, has the most businesses with 50 to 249 staff, at 130, and Maidstone has the most with 10 to 249, at 745.
Roads matter to buyers as much as the figures do. The M20, M2 and M25 put most of the county within reach of London and the rest of the South East, so a buyer based outside Kent can run a business here as a second site without moving. Expect interest from outside the county as well as from down the road.
What Kent's businesses do
Construction is Kent's biggest sector. It accounts for 12,250 businesses, 18.3% of the total, compared with 14.1% across England. In Medway the share is higher still, at 25.1%, and Medway's businesses are slightly smaller on average, with 90.8% of them employing fewer than 10 people. Professional, scientific and technical firms, such as accountants and architects, come next in Kent.
The picture changes if you only count businesses with a team. Among Kent businesses with 10 to 249 staff, hotels, pubs, restaurants and cafés make up the largest group, followed by health and care.
| Sector | All Kent businesses | With 10 to 249 staff |
|---|---|---|
| Construction | 12,250 | 555 |
| Professional, scientific and technical | 10,515 | 575 |
| Business administration and support | 5,760 | 515 |
| Retail | 4,450 | 390 |
| Accommodation and food | 4,065 | 930 |
| Manufacturing | 2,995 | 525 |
| Health and care | 2,855 | 740 |
Health and care in these figures covers GP and dental practices, care homes and day nurseries. Kent has 345 businesses classed as child day-care and 325 as residential care.
What the figures mean if you're selling
The figures can't tell you what your business is worth. They do show where Kent's established businesses are concentrated, and some of what buyers in those sectors will focus on.
Building firms and trades
With so many construction businesses in Kent, a lot of owners selling will be in building or the trades. Firms like these often depend heavily on the owner, who wins the work and knows the customers. A buyer will look hard at the order book, at who holds the customer relationships, and at whether a manager could run the jobs. That's goodwill resting on you, and our guide to goodwill explains why it's the hardest part of a business to sell.
Hospitality
Hotels, pubs, restaurants and cafés are the biggest group of Kent businesses with 10 to 249 staff. For most of them, the premises matter as much as the trade. A buyer will read the lease and the licences as closely as the takings.
Care homes and nurseries
Health and care is the second largest group of Kent businesses with 10 to 249 staff. These sales come with a regulator. A care home's registration with the Care Quality Commission and a nursery's registration with Ofsted each affect how a sale is structured and how long it takes. Our guides to selling a care home and selling a nursery cover the detail.
Professional firms
Accountants, surveyors, architects and similar firms are sold on their client relationships. A buyer will want to know which clients see you as the firm, and how many would stay if you left.
Who buys businesses in Kent
There are no official figures on who buys businesses in Kent. The likely buyers for an owner-run business here are the same as elsewhere.
- A competitor nearby that wants your customers, your team or your patch.
- A larger business from elsewhere in the South East or London that wants a base in Kent.
- An investor or a group that owns several businesses, which may keep yours running much as it is.
- Your own managers, often backed by a lender or an investor.
- Your employees, through an employee ownership trust.
A buyer from the next town may already know your market and some of your staff. That can make for a quicker deal, but it also means sharing information in stages, because the buyer who walks away is still your competitor on Monday.
Keeping it quiet in a county of small towns
Kent's trades and professions know each other. In a town the size of Faversham or Deal, your competitors know your suppliers, and your staff's families know each other. News of a sale travels fast, and a rumour can unsettle staff and hand competitors a line to use with your customers before anything is agreed.
- Have every buyer sign a confidentiality agreement before they see anything beyond a summary.
- Describe the business without naming it in any first approach, and leave out details that would identify it, such as the town or a well-known contract.
- Meet buyers away from your premises, and hold site visits back until heads of terms are signed.
- Keep customer names, staff salaries and supplier terms until late in due diligence.
- Decide in advance who inside the business needs to know, and when the rest of the team will hear it from you rather than from someone else.
Your premises
If you own the building you trade from, decide early whether it goes with the business or stays with you and is let to the buyer. A buyer may prefer to rent rather than find the money for the property, which keeps the price of the business down and leaves you with an income after the sale. Either way, settle the rent and the length of the lease before heads of terms, because a buyer takes the rent off the profit when working out what to pay. If you rent, check how long the lease has left and whether the landlord's consent is needed for a sale, since a landlord working to their own timetable is a common cause of delay.
Finding advisers near you
You'll want an accountant and a solicitor who have both worked on business sales before. Your usual accountant may be the right person, or may bring in a colleague who does more of this work. The solicitor who handled your lease or your will is often not the right person for a company sale.
- The ICAEW's online directory lets you search for chartered accountants by specialism and town.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority's register shows whether a solicitor or firm is regulated.
- Ask each adviser how many sales they've handled and who'll do the work day to day.
- Ask how they charge, and get it in writing before they start.
Some owners also use a broker or a corporate finance adviser to find buyers and run the sale. Our guide to business brokers explains what they do and what to check before you sign up with one.
The sale itself works as it would anywhere
Once you have a buyer, the steps are the same in Kent as in the rest of England. You agree heads of terms, the buyer carries out due diligence, the lawyers draft the sale documents, and you complete. The work that adds most to the price comes before any of that. Clean monthly figures and a business that runs without you can take a year or two to get right, so it pays to start well before you want to go.