Older age groups make up growing proportion of driving licence holders

People aged 70 and over make up a growing number of drivers on Britain’s roads and currently account for around one in seven licence holders, up from one in nine a decade ago.

Some 6.3 million full driving licences belong to people aged 70 or over, according to the latest available data from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

This is 14.8% of the nearly 42.9 million total licences that are currently held by drivers in Britain.

Both the percentage and the number of licences belonging to the 70-plus age group have increased steadily in recent years, according to Press Association analysis.

The earliest available DVLA data is for November 2012, which shows 10.4% of licences were held by people aged 70 or above, or 3.9 million.

By March 2016 this had climbed to 11.7% (4.5 million) and by March 2021 it was 12.9% (5.2 million).

The latest figure of 14.8% is for November 2025.

Were the proportion to continue rising at roughly the same rate, the figure could pass 16% – around one in six licence holders – before the end of the decade.

A similar trend is evident among even older age groups.

Licence holders aged 80 and over made up 2.8% of the total in November 2012, 3.2% in March 2016, 3.5% in March 2021 and 4.5% in November 2025.

Some 160,521 licence holders are currently aged 90 or above (0.4% of the total), more than twice the number in November 2012 (71,259, or 0.2%).

When looking at the full historical data, the figures show a clear long-term tilt away from younger drivers towards older age groups.

People aged 60 and over accounted for nearly a third of licence holders in November 2025 (32.8%), up from more than a quarter in November 2012 (26.8%).

The figures are not an exact measure of the number of drivers on Britain’s roads.

This is because not all licence holders are likely to be active drivers, while some may not be living in the country at the moment, the DVLA said.

But the data does show a clear shift in the age breakdown of people eligible to drive – one that mirrors a broad trend within the overall population of the country.

An estimated 25.2% of the population of Great Britain in mid-2024 were aged 60 or over, up from 23.1% a decade earlier in mid-2014, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Some 13.9% of the population in mid-2024 were aged 70 or above, up from 12.1% in mid-2014.