The 2026 private dental surge: how the practice sales market is recovering

Paul Graham analyses why a wider, better-funded buyer pool is driving a significant recovery in the practice sales market this year.

After two years of correction, caution, and recalibration, the dental practice sales market has turned.

Transactional activity is back with conviction, and Q1 2026 has made that plain.

The groundwork was laid in the latter part of 2025, and what we are seeing now is that confidence is converting into completed transactions, active processes, and a buyer pool that is wider and better funded than it has been in some time.

Interest rates

The Bank of England held interest rates at 3.75% in April, a decision driven by the inflationary shock from the conflict in the Middle East.

Some had hoped for a cut, and some now believe there will be no reductions at all this year, but perspective matters. 

Bank rate is 150 basis points below its peak, and lenders within the dental sector are active. Private dental is a needs-based, recurring-revenue business that does not behave like a discretionary consumer sector. 

Sellers holding out for a cleaner backdrop may be waiting longer than they expect. While the conditions today are not perfect, they are still good, and that is usually enough.

Business valuations

Private practice valuations have held well into 2026, with many achieving equal or higher multiples than mixed counterparts.

Strong earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) margins and owner-operated business profiles are driving that, but the best outcomes we are seeing are less about the multiple applied and more about what is being multiplied. 

Realistic, sustainable, clearly evidenced profits attract serious buyers. Buyers are more sophisticated than they were, and their due diligence reflects it. 

There is also a growing expectation around technology. artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, meaningfully embedded into clinical and operational workflow is increasingly factored into how buyers assess future earnings potential. It is moving from differentiator to baseline.

Maturity of the transactional landscape

While cash-on-completion remains common, equity rollovers, partnership structures, and performance-linked deferred consideration are increasingly central to larger deals. 

Sellers who engage with that intelligently frequently achieve better total outcomes. 

This is where advice quality matters most, as sellers who do not fully understand the mechanics of their own deal before entering the process leave value behind. The transaction that looks simple rarely stays that way.

The buyer pool

Corporate acquirers are back, adding competitive tension largely absent through much of 2024/25. 

Alongside them are private equity platforms at various stages, international operators and consolidators with capital and ambition. 

First-time buyers remain a significant force, driving a third of Christie & Co completions last year. The breadth of today’s buyer pool is one of the most consequential factors underpinning current values.

Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation 

The CMA’s investigation into private dentistry merits attention, but it does not merit delay as the transactional market has not paused. 

Based on the veterinary precedent, the likely direction is greater transparency in pricing and patient communication, not structural intervention.

The macro environment is imperfect, and it almost always is.

What matters is the set of conditions specific to the practice sales market right now: active lending, a broad acquirer pool, and valuation fundamentals that hold. 

Those conditions are present today. Owners who act with that context, and with the right support, are well placed.

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