The sector trends impacting Q2 2026's M&A activity
Blog
August 7, 2026
5-mins
Headline M&A numbers only tell you so much. The more useful question for any business owner is what's happening in your sector specifically. Here's what the data says for Q2 2026, sector by sector, drawn from the MarktoMarket Barometer and PitchBook's Q2 2026 Global M&A Report.
It doesn't get the headlines that energy or AI-linked tech does, but industrials and business support services remain the single largest sector in the UK M&A market by some distance: 46% of constituents in the latestMarktoMarket Valuation Indices (Q1 2026), even as technology, media and communications lost share and consumer gained. If you run a business services company, you're operating in the sector doing the most volume, even if it rarely makes the trade press.
Built environment is seeing similarly heavy inbound interest from acquirers right now, according to advisers I've spoken with this quarter, though the quality of that interest varies significantly. More buyers chasing you isn't automatically a good sign. It's worth knowing which of them are serious, and how much they pay, before you engage.
The most acquisitive UK buyers this quarter were both wealth-management consolidators: Perspective Financial (6 deals in March) and MKC Wealth (4 deals in June). That's part of a broader wave of platform buying in financial advice and wealth management that's been building for several years now, and it's still running. If you're a wealth or financial advisory business owner, scale and consolidator interest are genuinely working in your favour right now.
Global energy M&A value rose 385.5% year on year and 61.7% quarter on quarter to $217bn, its second-highest quarter on record, anchored by Dominion Energy's $118.5bn tie-up with NextEra Energy. The driver is structural: AI data-centre power demand doesn't ease off when interest rates rise, which is exactly why energy has kept growing while financing-dependent parts of the market haven't.
Healthcare M&A value grew 71.6% year on year and 11.7% quarter on quarter, with deal count also up (13% YoY, 5.7% QoQ), a sign this is genuinely broad-based rather than a handful of outsized transactions. It also commands the highest sector multiple in the PitchBook dataset (12.6x TTM median, 20.4x average, a 20-year high), driven by an oncoming patent-cliff wave running through to 2030.
Technology is the sharpest example of the two-speed market this quarter. AI-driven strategic megadeals, like Cursor's $60bn transaction, sit alongside a near-collapse in sponsor-led legacy software buyouts, down 60.5% quarter on quarter. European IT deal value rose 51.1% quarter on quarter, consistent with PitchBook's observation that European corporate IT spend per employee still trails the US by 10 to 15 years: a structural, multi-year opportunity rather than a one-off. The distinction that matters for owners in this space is whether AI is genuinely embedded in the product, or bolted on for the pitch deck. Buyers can tell the difference, and they're pricing accordingly.
Financial services M&A fell to a two-year low globally ($101.7bn) as the prior bank and insurance consolidation wave paused, with REITs dominating the largest deals. The UK looks nothing like that: EY's H1 2026 data shows UK financial services M&A value up eightfold year on year to £33.7bn, driven overwhelmingly by wealth and asset management, where deal count rose from 47 to 61 and value from £0.2bn to £22.7bn. That's directly consistent with the platform buying we're seeing from Perspective Financial and MKC Wealth above, and with reports that Evelyn Partners is exploring a sale of its own.
Global B2C deal value fell 44.5% quarter on quarter, but deal count held essentially flat: a lighter mix of large deals, not fewer buyers. PE appetite for generalist consumer businesses remains cautious, and the buyers who are active are notably selective about what they'll pay a premium for. That selectivity doesn't mean PE has stepped away from the lower mid-market altogether: LDC backed a growth investment in Bespoke Kitchen Foods this quarter, proof there's still real appetite for the right consumer business, just not for generalist ones.
That matches what I'm hearing directly from advisers working consumer processes right now. The recurring theme across almost every conversation I've had this quarter: buyers are paying a real premium for demonstrable repeatability of revenue, not just historical top line. It's less about whether revenue technically recurs on paper, and more about whether it's genuinely built to repeat. That distinction is increasingly what separates a 6x business from a 9x one.
Materials and resources M&A value rose 28.5% quarter on quarter and 44.5% year on year, though it's still trailing H2 2025 levels, with oil-price volatility tied to the conflict in Iran and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz a visible driver.
If you want to know what any of this means for your specific business and sector, that's exactly the conversation worth having before you plan an exit, raise growth capital, or think about succession.
Get in touch at info@theimplicit.co.uk to ask questions and explore trends impacting your sector.
Interested in our events?
Implicit Advisory Limited is a Private Limited Company registered in England and Wales under registered number 13405906 whose registered office address is at Hyde Park House, Co AJ Fleet & County Limited, Hyde, SK14 4EH.
