Brits are Buying More Expensive Cars

The number of cars registered in Great Britain continues to increase each year, as it has for the past 75 years. In fact, the rise is generally quite reliable, with the number of licensed cars rising 1% to 2% in most recent years. While the overall rise in car ownership is pretty consistent, there is a change in what type of cars people are buying. That is, there is a clear shift from mass market cars towards premium / luxury vehicles. Brits are buying a higher proportion of luxury/premium cars now than they did in the past.

The number of cars in Great Britain continues to rise steadily, except for a small drop in 2020

Increasing Proportion of Luxury/Premium Cars

Diving into statistics from the Department for Transport, the NimbleFins team found that there's been a consumer shift towards luxury/premium cars in the UK over the past 10+ years. Analysis of license data from premium/luxury brands (e.g., BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Land Rover, Mini, Jaguar, Lexus, Porsche, Alfa Romeo, Jeep, etc.) and mass market brands (e.g., Ford, Vauxhall, Volkswagen, Nissan, Toyota, Peugeot, Renault, Honda, Citroen, Hyundai, etc.) showed that luxury/premium car brands comprised about 27% of all licensed cars in 2024 in the UK compared to the 19% they represented in 2014, with the proportion of mass market brands declining by 7 percentage points from 80% to 73% over the same time period.

Luxury/Premium Car Trends

In the five years from 2019 to 2024, there was a 15% increase in the number of luxury/premium cars licensed in the UK. In terms of actual cars, the number of luxury/premium cars on the road increased from 7.8 million in Q2 2019 to 8.9 million in Q2 2024—an increase of over 1.1 million cars.

For instance, there were 156973 Porsches in the UK at the beginning of 2019. By Q2 2024, the number of Porsches increased 40% to over 220,000 cars on the road. The number of Teslas increased from 13,639 to 205,745 over the same period—a rise of 1,409%!

Other high end brand car makers have been increasing their presence dramatically in the UK as well, with 12 out of the top 20 we looked at increasing their numbers by double digit %s in just five years. Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Infiniti and Daimler were the most notable premium makers with fewer cars licensed in the UK in 2024 than in 2019.

Mass Market Car Trends

In contrast, the number of mass market cars has remained relatively flat overall, shrinking 0.5% in the past five years—there were 24.7 million mass market cars on the road in Q1 2019 and 24.6 million by Q2 2024.

However, while the demand for mass market cars has remained relatively flat there have certainly been significant shifts in terms of which brands are most popular with consumers. For example, the number of Kias rose 41% and Toyotas rose 13% from 2019 to 2024. Offsetting these gains there are now 9% fewer Fords, 17% fewer Vauxhalls and 12% fewer Peugeots on the road now than there were in 2019. These shifts are, in part, due to complicated car alliance and ownership structures in the auto industry, through which cars are rebranded from time to time.

Car Finance Used by Many

How are consumers paying for these more expensive cars? Despite a recent pullback in car finance popularity, consumers are still relying on car financing a lot more than they used to. From Q4 2012 to Q1 2019 when the number of cars on the road only increased 10.3%, the number of (used and new) cars bought through financing from a dealer rose 67%, implying that a larger proportion of cars is purchased through car financing instead of cash. Additionally, the value of car financing has increased even more—124% over the same time period—suggesting that consumers are borrowing larger amounts for each car purchase.

Methodology

To identify trends in consumer desire for premium cars and mass market cars in Great Britain, we analysed vehicle licensing statistics from the Department of Transport. We compared licensing data from year end in 2012 and 2019, having grouped car makes into either "mass market" or "premium" categories as follows:

We also analysed car financing data from the Finance & Leasing Association to understand how consumers are affording this shift towards premium and luxury cars.