The boom in pricey private number plates

Buying personalised number plates is increasingly popular with British drivers, and the industry is currently predicted to be worth over £1 billion this year.   
 
Since 2018, online interest in buying and selling personalised number plates has increased by 58% and is predicted to continue growing. It’s no surprise then, that our research predicts the private plates industry will be worth a whopping £1.3 billion in 2022, a 275% increase since 2018. 
 
Personalisation can cost a pretty penny: some number plates have sold for well over the average down payment on a home in the UK (£48,564). On average, a personalised plate will cost Brits £877, but some drivers are willing to spend tens of thousands of pounds on their ideal combination of letters and numbers.  
 
This was the case for Oliver Day, an estate agent from Surrey, who spent years looking for a plate that spelled his name. Five years ago, he finally found and bought, his private plate, ‘OLVI3R’, for an impressive £35,000.  

Private plates can increase in value 

Personalised number plates could have higher resale value down the line. As plates can stay with the driver forever, change vehicles or even be passed down through generations, many see their plates as a personal investment with monetary as well as sentimental value.  

The ‘1’ plate originally sold in Dubai in 2016 for 31 Million AED (£5,410,120) was bought two years later in 2018 for 52.2 Million AED (£10,615,160) by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, increasing in value by an impressive £5.2 million.  

In the UK, several private plates have seen incredible increases in value. ‘JAM 3S’, which was bought in 1998 for £9,200, was re-sold last year for £95,500 - a 933% increase. ‘BLA 6K’ (BLACK) increased by 386% in 2019, from £3,500 to £17,000 in 12 years and ‘P14 STA’ (PASTA) increased by 138% in just two years, from £3,250 to £7,750 in 2020.  

Even though potential resale value can influence purchasing decisions, the personal value of a plate can be worth even more. This is the case for digital consultant, Nathan Cue from Croydon - “I purchased my plate ‘N99 CUE’ one month ago for £250 because I like the aesthetic of having my surname on my plate. I don’t believe I would resell it as it has a lot more value to me personally than the amount I bought it for.” 

A personalised plate for everyone

No matter your name, hobbies, background or interests, there’s likely to be a private plate that suits you. 

We’ve identified several available personalised plates in different categories, and predicted what their current resale value could be:

Pets

Methodology and sources

Themed plates and 2022 plates: Using seed lists for these themes (Cities, Food, Pets, Recent/Popular Searches) we found available plates and their prices based on searching for plates relating to the terms in the seed lists. Number plates where no price has been listed have been excluded. Where possible, the words themselves have been used for the searches; due to inaccurate results on words over 5 letters, some shortened versions have been used to achieve results. This value increase is speculative, and the plates were available as of 12th January 2022.