Much like the new car market, the SMMT also provides data for the used car market. Now that all the data has been collected for 2025, and the results are published, we can see what the trends were last year.

The headline figure is that sales of used cars are up 2.2% with 7,807,872 transactions vs 2024 that had 7,643,180 transactions. This reflects a healthy, buoyant market with customers seeking value in used cars with 2025 being the third year of growth in a row.

Petrol sales remained stable and the most popular choice, growing by 1.5% year on year and taking 56.7% market share,

Diesel sales remained the number 2 choice by consumers; however, these now follow similar trends to the new car market and sales have declined year on year by -3.5% accounting for 33.1% market share of sales. This may be reflected by fewer options available for new purchases when compared to other years.

But the big headline is battery electric vehicle sales that have surged in 2025 by 45.7% to 274,815 transactions and hitting a new high of 3.5% market share of all sales. This is perhaps attributed to stronger demand from more options and lower price-point EVs as interest in battery electric cars continues to grow.

Ahead of BEV sales were hybrids increasing sales by 28.6% over the previous year to 407,531 units thanks in part to an abundance of choice from a variety of manufacturers.

And lastly, plug-in hybrid sales grew by a healthy 6.3% to 88,032 units demonstrating a healthy appetite for the plug.

The big news from this is that Battery Electric Vehicles are in increasing demand, yet they’re not held back by supply, meaning that prices remain lower. And this is reflected in the surge for customer looking for value in EVs with much more choice now available.

However, the most popular used car on sale was the Ford Fiesta selling more than 303,090 units with the Vauxhall Corsa 2nd with 247,853 units and the Volkswagen Golf taking third place with 226,962 units.

Electrified cars combined now represent a 30.9% increase in transaction over 2024. We can see the trends moving from diesel into electrified cars, but there is some way to go for these trends to catch up with new cars registrations. More on that here https://theinterface.uk/blog-posts/a-look-back-at-the-vehicle-registrations-for-2025.