At a glance:
- Range Rover Evoque storms the sub-£10,000 retail chart
- Vauxhall delivers another strong month, while the Peugeot 2008 continues its rise
- First-ever entry for the Mazda3, which is also the fastest seller of the month
- Mainstream leaders break into the over-£10,000 bracket
- Land Rover leads brand margins for a fifth straight month
December 2025 – Dealer Auction’s Retail Margin Monitor for November reveals a decisive shift in the UK’s used-car market, with a premium model topping lower price brackets for the first time and margins strengthening across multiple segments. This movement comes as we start to see how the Autumn Budget measures (announced 26 November) could influence vehicle supply.
The most significant move came from the Range Rover Evoque, which entered the sub-£10,000 chart for the first time – and immediately seized the top spot with the highest retail margin recorded this year: £3,175.
This sudden arrival of the high-spec model may be an early consequence of broader market adjustments triggered by government policy. Since the summer, rumours have been rife that the government would end the Employee Car Ownership Scheme (ECOS), a move that would hamper the supply of high-spec vehicles entering the used-car pool. Although the move has been shelved until 2030, the Evoque’s performance suggests that dealers have been keen to stock up.
November delivered the highest average sold price on the Dealer Auction platform this year at £6,526, while average age (7.6 years) and average mileage (69,352 miles) both hit their lowest levels of 2025. The trend is a notable departure from October, when older vehicles dominated margins and drove market stability.
Dealer Auction’s Marketplace Director, Kieran TeeBoon, commented: “Last month was all about strong performance from older cars. This month, the story flips. We’re seeing younger, higher-spec models filtering into brackets where they’ve rarely appeared before. It’s a striking early sign of the market repositioning itself ahead of the fallout from November’s Budget.
Elsewhere in the chart, Vauxhall’s performance continues its dominance from October. There was a rare appearance for the Vauxhall Zafira Tourer in ninth place (£2,125). After topping the rankings for three consecutive months earlier in the year, the Vauxhall Mokka X delivered another strong November, taking second place (£2,425). And its sibling, the Mokka, also performed well, falling just shy of the top 10.
The Peugeot 2008 continued to climb, advancing from tenth in September to fifth in October, to third in November (£2,400). The Mazda3 made its first-ever entry into the top 10 with £2,020, and was the fastest seller of the month, averaging just 28 days to sell at retail. These results underscore the continuing appeal of efficient, well-equipped compact models as buyers opt for value-driven choices in a changing tax environment.
In another switch-up, the usually premium-dominated chart for models retailing over £10,000 saw powerful performances from mainstream best-sellers. The Nissan Qashqai landed in second place (£4,850), while the Volkswagen Golf and Volkswagen Tiguan also secured top 10 positions – suggesting that dealers are prioritising trusted, broad-appeal stock as they prepare for potential supply tightening in 2026.
At brand level, Land Rover topped the rankings for sub-£10,000 models, with an average margin of £2,875, followed by Mercedes-Benz (£2,300) and BMW (£2,275). This marks the fifth month in a row that Land Rover has topped the sub-£10,000 brand leaderboard and reflects the increasing presence of premium models in lower price brackets, even as policy headwinds intensify.
TeeBoon concluded: “The Autumn Budget could prove one of the most impactful for road users in recent years, particularly for the fleet and leasing sectors. But our view of November as a whole shows dealers are ready to adapt quickly in a shifting policy environment. The relationship between age, specification and price is already changing, and the next quarter will give us the clearest view yet of how the Budget measures reshape the used market.
“With the writing down allowance dropping from 18% to 14% and leasing and fleet operators facing higher costs for holding vehicles longer, many are expected to extend replacement cycles, delaying the flow of nearly new stock to dealers. Over the year, we’ve broadly seen older models performing well – could the dynamics for 2026 be already in motion?”
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About Dealer Auction
Dealer Auction is the UK’s leading digital remarketing platform. We give buyers and sellers more choice, better insight and greater margins. Dealer Auction is an independent company, created through a joint venture between Cox Automotive and Auto Trader. For more information, visit www.dealerauction.co.uk.
Launched in January 2022, Dealer Auction’s Retail Margin Monitor tracks the potential retail margin that can be achieved on vehicles bought via Dealer Auction’s open network. We track models meeting two key criteria: more than 20 units sold with a retail price of less than £25,000. We then compare the sold price for each model with the Auto Trader market average to reveal the potential margin. For the brand table, we compare models with more than 50 units sold. We crunch the numbers at the start of every new month.
Notes:
The average ‘Auto Trader Retail Rating’ uses three key metrics to determine the consumer demand for the vehicle:
- Average days to sell – Calculated for the whole of the UK and then adjusted for the variations Auto Trader have observed locally in your area.
- Live market supply – Comparing the national supply level for the vehicle over the last seven days with the usual level of supply Auto Trader have seen in the market over the last six months.
- Live buyer demand – Analysing how many people are currently searching for the vehicle on Auto Trader, comparing consumer search behaviour over the last seven days against the level of interest over the last six months.
