The private parking market in United Kingdom

Private parking lots are used for non-commercial use of parking space for motor vehicles. Paid parking lots may be considered "public" if they are regulated by municipalities. Private parking lots are often large, multi-story paved buildings and can be used for short-term parking or long-term storage of vehicles.

The global parking market is growing in line with global urbanization and the increasing number of vehicles on the road. In fact, the global private parking market is showing continued growth and is expected to remain so in the coming years. The parking market is expected to reach $140 billion in 2025, up from $44 billion in 2015. The market size, measured by revenue, of the Car Parks industry is £1.1bn in 2021. The market size of the Car Parks industry is expected to increase 10.2% in 2022. UK road traffic levels have fallen by 73% since the lockdown measures were introduced, and were at their lowest since 1955 – a stark indication of how hard the industry has been hit.

in 2018, Europe counted just under 500 million parking spaces, less than 15 million of which were private. In the UK there ar 17,000 - 20,000 car parks across the country where people regularly park their vehicles. Of those, It is estimated there are around 6,000 multi-storey car parks.

The five major players in the private parking industry in Uk are APCOA, Q-Park, NCP, Britannia Parking, and Purple Parking. While APCOA e Britannia Parking only manage car parks but do not own them, NCP and Q-Park also own car parks in addition to managing them. Then there is Purple Parking which act mainly as a booking agent for other airport parking service providers but they also provide park and ride services.

Across the UK, the average cost of parking in an off-street car park is £1.10 per hour. London, unsurprisingly, came out worst in the study of parking charges, with drivers in the capital forking out nearly three times the national average. The same applies to Oxford. At the other end of the table, drivers in Northern Ireland enjoy some of the lowest parking rates around

Future trends in the sector are the rise in data and integration, the switch to electric cars and the acceleration of autonomous vehicles.