If there’s something that every person who drives a car knows, it’s that getting a good price on a parking spot can be a tough thing to achieve. As often, many parking places, particularly in busy areas can have a premium price. It can vary from £1 to £20 per hour if you’re not careful, and often you’ll find that you might have missed a more convenient, slightly less expensive place to park.
Whilst everyone wants to find a good parking place that is close to their location, the cost will always be the deciding factor on where they’ll park. Which leads us to the question, how much does it actually cost to park in each UK city?
To help answer this question, our finance experts here at Cashfloat have utilised data from Parkopedia to find out average price for a two-hour time slot, along with how many parking places each city has. We focused on car parks that were available for all, and excluded any that we’re just customer only or any that are only for annual ticket holders.
Where are the most and least expensive places to park your car in the UK
Our research has shown that, unsurprisingly, the bigger cities are the most expensive places for parking, with London taking the top spot. However, we have also found that the average cost of paying for two hours of parking could cost you only £3.19. We looked at 76 cities to find out this average and discovered that there are 46 below this average, which means that 61% are below the average price!
The most expensive location for parking in the UK
Our research shows that the most expensive place to place in the UK is in London, which could set drivers back by £14.49 for just two hours of parking. This is £11.30 more expensive than the average cost across the whole of the UK. So, whilst London does have plenty of things to see and do, if you’re planning on having a day trip, you might want to think, is it worth driving to London or is the train a better option?
The least expensive place for parking in the UK
According to our data, for those looking for the best value for parking that won’t cost a fortune, your best location to visit is St Davids in Wales, which apparently won’t cost you anything! Next to this, you could also save plenty by visiting Armagh in Northern Ireland, which would only cost £0.39 to park for two hours, which is £2.80 cheaper than the average cost of parking in the UK.
The average cost of parking in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
So, the question is now, where has the best value for money when it comes to parking costs in the UK – is England, Scotland, Wales, or Norther Ireland best? And with 76 cities being featured in our research, we can reveal that Northern Ireland has the cheapest rates for two hours of parking, with an average cost of only £0.72.
When we look at the most expensive location to park your car, England races ahead with an average cost of £3.54 for two hours of parking. Significantly higher than Northern Ireland. It’s also £0.35 more expensive then the average cost for the whole of the UK, perhaps this is due to the high prices of London, Manchester, Birmingham, and other major cities.
| Location | Average two-hour cost |
| England | £3.54 |
| Scotland | £2.88 |
| Wales | £2.06 |
| Northern Ireland | £0.72 |
Summary
Paying for parking isn’t always everyone’s cup of tea, but this research should hopefully ease driver’s worries about the cost of paying for a parking place if they are planning on driving around the UK anytime soon. Our findings clearly highlight that the bigger, busier cities will have a higher price for parking. However, whilst the price might be high, just remember to plan ahead and have a look around first for the best parking places, as there will be many hidden places that could be slightly cheaper for parking, they just might not be in a convenient place.
Methodology
Cashfloat sought to uncover the average price for parking across 76 UK cities. To do so, they scrapped Parkopedia data including the number of parking places in the city, the number of parking spots per parking area and the price for 2 hours of parking, the average was then used to rank each city. Any parking that was for customers/visitors, unavailable or did not have relevant information was removed from this list. The data was collected January 2024 and is accurate as of then.
