Quick summary
Looking only at genuinely self-managed freehold and Right to Manage companies, the average board runs three directors, almost identically whether the building is structured as a share of freehold company or a Right to Manage company. The common impression that most of these companies have just one director turns out to come from a very different group: agent-run shell companies, not buildings actually running themselves.
"Is it normal that it's basically just the three of us doing this?" is a fair question, and one that's genuinely hard to answer without something to compare against. We looked at the numbers.
Where the "one director" idea comes from
Look at every company on the register with the kind of company classification a management company carries, and the average board size comes out at 1.73 directors, small enough to make a three- or four-person board feel unusually well-staffed. That average is misleading. It's dragged down almost entirely by shell companies set up and run by managing agents, structured the same way on paper but with none of the actual self-management a leaseholder-run board involves.
What the real average looks like
Filter down to companies that are genuinely self-managed, actual leaseholders on the board rather than an agent's shell structure, and the average jumps to a flat three directors. That's a meaningfully different picture: most buildings running themselves have a small team, not a lone volunteer carrying it all.
Share of freehold vs Right to Manage: same size
The two most common structures for a self-managed building, share of freehold and Right to Manage, land on almost exactly the same average board size once agent-run shells are excluded: 3.00 directors for share of freehold companies, 3.01 for Right to Manage ones. Whichever structure your building uses, the shape of a typical board looks the same.
Is your board too small, too big, or about right
Three is the average, not a rule. A board of four or five gives more slack when someone's away or loses interest for a while. A board of one or two is where strike-off risk climbs noticeably, simply because there's less redundancy if the person usually carrying it can't. If your building's sitting at one or two directors, it's worth treating that as worth addressing at the next AGM, not as a quirky exception.
Frequently asked questions
Is one director enough for a self-managed freehold company?
Legally, a private company can have just one director. Practically, the data shows boards that size carry more compliance risk, since there's no one else to pick things up if that person's unavailable. Three tends to be the more resilient number.
Does a Right to Manage company need a different board size to a share of freehold company?
No, the average board size for both structures comes out almost identical once genuinely self-managed companies are compared like for like, around three directors either way.
Why do so many "typical management company" statistics suggest boards are usually just one person?
Because those figures usually include every company with the right classification code, including agent-run shells that look identical to a self-managed company on paper but aren't actually run by leaseholders. Filtering those out changes the picture considerably.