The data paints an uncomfortable picture of the UK’s domestic road freight market. Trucks lifted 1.53 billion tonnes of goods last year, down 3% from 2024, while goods moved — a measure that combines weight and distance — fell by 4% to 162 billion tonne-kilometres.
Total HGV distance also dropped, falling by 2% to 19.0 billion vehicle-kilometres.
The figures cover domestic journeys by GB-registered HGVs operating in the UK. They do not include foreign-registered HGVs, vans, light goods vehicles, or GB-registered HGVs working outside the UK.
A weaker market and a bumpier year
The headline figures show a softer freight market. But the quarterly data suggests something else too: the flow of work became more uneven. According to the DfT, goods lifted ranged from 360 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2025 to 408 million tonnes in the second quarter. Across the year, quarterly freight volumes varied by as much as 14%, compared with no more than 8% in 2024.
Source: Department for Transport, Road freight statistics 2025
Groupage remained the biggest commodity category, accounting for 383 million tonnes, or 25% of all goods lifted by GB-registered HGVs. The top five commodity groups made up 72% of all goods lifted, broadly unchanged from the previous year.
There were still pockets of growth. Glass, cement and other non-metallic mineral products rose by 11%, from 103 million tonnes in 2024 to 114 million tonnes in 2025.
Source: Department for Transport, Road freight statistics 2025
But the wider picture was clear: GB-registered HGVs carried less freight overall.
5.9 billion kilometres with nothing on board
The most striking figure in the release may be the empty running number. GB-registered HGVs travelled 5.9 billion kilometres empty in 2025. That means 31% of all loaded and empty vehicle kilometres were run without a load.
The share was barely changed from 2024, when empty running stood at 30%. The average length of haul also barely moved, falling from 106 kilometres in 2024 to 105 kilometres in 2025.
Source: Department for Transport, Road freight statistics 2025
Articulated vehicles continued to do most of the heavy lifting. They carried 962 million tonnes of goods in 2025, or 63% of all goods moved by weight. Rigid vehicles carried 570 million tonnes, or 37%.
Their operating patterns were very different. Articulated HGVs averaged 134 kilometres per haul, compared with just 58 kilometres for rigid vehicles.
The underlying tables also show that mainly public haulage accounted for most domestic HGV activity. It lifted around 1.08 billion tonnes of goods and moved 118.7 billion tonne-kilometres in 2025, compared with 449 million tonnes and 42.8 billion tonne-kilometres under mainly own-account transport.
Intermodal grows, but from a small base
One area did move in the other direction: intermodal journeys. In 2025, the 1.53 billion tonnes lifted by GB-registered HGVs equated to 163 million HGV journeys. Of these, 7.3 million journeys, or 5%, involved at least one intermodal element. That was up from 6.2 million journeys, or 4%, in 2024.
By tonnage, 130 million tonnes of goods, or 9% of all goods lifted, were moved using HGVs and at least one other mode of transport.
Among intermodal journeys, 66% began or ended at a shipping dock, 24% at a rail siding or terminal, and 12% at an airport.
Driver shortage is not back at crisis level but it is not gone
The DfT’s separate driver vacancy figures add another uncomfortable layer. In the fourth quarter of 2025, 26% of HGV businesses reported driver vacancies. That was up from 24% in the same quarter of 2024, although below the 31% recorded in the third quarter of 2025.
The figure is still far below the 43% recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021, which the DfT describes as the likely peak of the driver shortage in this data series.
Even so, the numbers show that the problem has not disappeared. Among businesses with vacancies in Q4 2025, the most common reason was better pay or benefits elsewhere, cited by 42%. Existing drivers leaving the industry was cited by 38%, while driver retirement was reported by 33%.
Other reasons included needing more drivers to take on new work, cited by 26%, and new drivers not entering the profession, cited by 25%.
The impact was not theoretical. Among businesses with vacancies, 23% said they had missed a delivery in the previous week because drivers were unavailable. That was up from 14% in Q1 2025 and 20% in Q4 2024, though still below the 30% recorded in Q4 2021.
Drivers paid below the national median
The pay figures add to the pressure. According to provisional ONS figures cited by the DfT, median hourly pay for HGV drivers stood at £16.25 in 2025. That was 18% below the median hourly pay for all employees, at £19.74.
At the same time, wage rises were much less widespread than during the 2021 shortage. Across 2025, the proportion of HGV businesses reporting driver wage increases in the previous three months ranged from 11% to 26%. In Q4 2021, by contrast, 46% of HGV businesses had reported increasing driver wages in the previous three months.
For those businesses that did raise wages, the median hourly increase was around £1 during most of 2025, except in Q2, when it fell to £0.75.
Financial incentives have also largely faded. The share of HGV businesses paying incentives to recruit or retain drivers has remained at 5% or below since Q3 2023. In Q4 2025, just 4% of businesses paid an incentive and 2% were planning to do so.
The figures do not show a repeat of the 2021 driver shortage. But they do show a market under pressure: less freight moved, billions of empty kilometres, and driver availability still causing missed deliveries for some operators.
