The Car Buyer Project: Equality in the driving seat

The Car Buyer Project: 2026 Report

Today, women¹ hold 48% of UK driving licences². They have more disposable income and autonomy than ever before, and they’re the majority consumer - confident in spending on products that reflect their lifestyles, values, aspirations and status.

Despite this progress, we’ve all heard the anecdotes from women about their negative experiences when buying a car – but what about the data? What is the data telling us about the gender gap in the car buying experience? Is there a gender gap?

This report is a reflective summary of what women have told us about their car buying experiences. As the UK’s largest automotive marketplace, Autotrader is an integral element of the car buying experience for many drivers and so it’s important that we take responsibility for the part we’ve played in the current status quo.

¹Throughout this report we use women/woman and men/ man as nouns and female/male as adjectives in relation to the way respondents identified themselves in the survey. Autotrader recognises not everyone fits into these binary categories.

²https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/nts02-driving-licence-holders accessed October 2025. England only.