Last week, we reported that the number of agricultural tractors registered in the UK in the first quarter of 2025 was the lowest for 24 years. The total of 2,228 machines logged was 23% lower than in January to March 2024. Now, we can look at how trends varied by power band and region.
The market downturn was apparent across the whole of the power range, with all broad bands seeing declines of at least 10%, compared with a year before. The biggest fall was for the highest-powered machines, with registrations of tractors over 240hp down by nearly 45% year on year. This section of the market was the best performing in 2024, though, so these machines still made up a higher proportion of the total than in most earlier years.
The reduction in registrations was also seen across all parts of the country. The smallest decline was in the southern half of England, where tractor numbers were down by less than 20%. At the other end of the scale, the biggest year-on-year fall was in Yorkshire and North East England, where registrations only reached around half the numbers logged in the opening three months of 2024. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all saw falls of between a fifth and a third.
