Motor Transport Top 100 2015

Do you want the good news or the bad news? OK, good news… the Top 100 road transport operators in the UK have more money flowing through their books than they did a year ago; are more profitable than they were a year ago and employ more people than they did a year ago. The bad news… since last year we’ve lost City Link and Deben Transport, two are trading through a CVA and this growth was achieved despite 15 of the Top 100 seeing turnover fall year-on-year. You can view the Motor Transport Top 100 2015 as an online PDF or as interactive (mobile-friendly) tables.

The MT Top 100 is worth a staggering £28.3bn to the UK economy, providing employment for an estimated 331,500 (that’s pretty much the same as the entire population of Leicester). It’s a collective economic weight that the industry should take pride in, shout from the roof-tops about and throw its weight around the halls of power with.

Average turnover for the Top 100 is £283.7m, up year-on-year from £272.9m; average pre-tax profit is £11.2m, up year-on-year from £9.5m and average number of employees is 3,316, up from 3,284 (see table). However you look at numbers like these, it’s a bull run for the financial health of the road haulage sector (and it comes with the caveat that, sadly, 3% of our sample generate that dreaded Companies House warning of ‘financial results are too old’ and have not reported figures beyond the end of 2013).