There were nearly 102,000 vehicles stolen in England and Wales in 2021 alone – but it’s official – London is both the UK capital and the capital of car crime.
We’ve curated a selection of the most important and recent statistics out in the public domain on car crime in London to give a full picture of the specific areas of concern, and how car crime stacks up to other areas in the UK.
Key statistics
Vehicle Thefts
Between June 2021 to June 2022 there were a reported 32,294 vehicle thefts recorded in London. This represents a 16% rise compared with the previous 12 months. [source]
In the period June 2021-22 there were 277.55 thefts [source] or unauthorised takings of a motor vehicle per 100,000 people in London – 50% more than the next area on the list, Greater Manchester. This equates to 68 vehicles per day over the course of a year[source].
Vehicle crime
Vehicle crime is a broad definition used by police forces to define illegal activity such as theft of a motor vehicle, theft from a motor vehicle, aggravated vehicle taking and interference with a motor vehicle.
Nearly 10% of all crime in London is vehicle crime, equating to more than 321,000 crimes over the past three years, or 293 every single day. [source]
In 2020/21 London had the highest rate of ‘interference with a motor vehicle’ in the country, with 151.06 offences recorded per 100,000 people. Bedfordshire came in second with a rate of 144.51 per 100,000 people, while South Yorkshire followed in third place with a rate of 134.83 per 100,000.[source]
London also tops the list for the highest number of thefts of belongings from a vehicle. In 2020/21 there were 687.51 offences per 100,000 people. [source]
London saw a total of 6,839 van theft incidents in 2020 and 2021. This is almost half (46%) of the offences seen across the UK.[source]
Where does vehicle theft in London occur?
While vehicle theft is clearly happening right across the capital, there are specific areas which are worse than others.
London’s worst boroughs for vehicle thefts
The five worst boroughs for vehicle thefts (June 2021 to June 2022) [source] are Enfield, Newham, Barnet, Redbridge and Croydon.
London’s worst postcodes for vehicle crime
Nine out of the top ten postcodes in the UK with the highest total number of vehicle crimes are London postcodes, they are:
| 1 | CR0 (Croydon) | 6,005 |
| 2 | (NW10) Brent | 5,092 |
| 3 | (N17) Haringey | 4,707 |
| 4 | (E17) Waltham Forest | 3,958 |
| 5 | (NW2) Barnet | 3,703 |
| 6 | (E14) Tower Hamlets | 3,553 |
| 7 | (LE3) Leicester | 3,543 |
| 8 | (N1) Hackney | 3,430 |
| 9 | (E40) Waltham Forest | 3,211 |
| 10 | (IG1) Redbridge | 2,969 |
Leicester is the only non-London postcode to make it into the top ten at number seven.
Haringey has the highest density of vehicle crime, at 74.8 crimes per 1000 people, while in Waltham Forest over 16% of all crime is attributed to vehicle crime – this is the highest percentage out of all the postcodes ranking in the top ten.[source]
There have been 2,663 instances of aggravated vehicle taking, or carjacking as it is sometimes dubbed. Croydon has the highest volume of cases out of the London boroughs between 2019 to 2021 – with 139 cases. [source]
Where do cars get stolen in London
In 2021 Londoners were most likely to get their cars stolen when parked on the street. It goes without saying that parking your car in the garage is the safest place to store your car, although most Londoners do not have this luxury. [source]
The cost of car crime in London
There are no figures available publicly which calculate the actual cost of car crime in the UK or even London specifically – but it is said that in 2021 insurers paid out an estimated £1.44 billion for vehicle thefts in England and Wales. [source]
We also know that London motorists pay a lot more on their car insurance premiums than drivers in other parts of the UK. In London the average premium is £781.01 whereas the lowest average premium is £422.88 in the South West of the UK.[source]
It’s worth mentioning however, that insurance premiums take into account more than just the likelihood of vehicle crime – urban areas generally have much younger populations so this is factored into calculations and this will apply to Londoners too.
According to data from one private stolen vehicle monitoring company, the value of cars stolen went up from £10 million to £23 million between 2020 and 2021, although these figures are for the UK as a whole.[source]
There are several factors which have contributed to this increase, but thieves are stealing more valuable vehicles; in 2006 the average value of a stolen vehicle was £10,000, whereas in 2021 it was £20,000, again these figures are for England and Wales.[source]
Convictions and arrests for vehicle crime in London
Unfortunately if you do have your car stolen in London then it is extremely unlikely that you will see justice for the crime. In 2021 out of 30,000 of theft 89% were closed by the Metropolitan Police without even identifying a suspect and only in 2.4% of vehicle thefts was anyone charged.[source]
Last year, 55,000 people reported theft from a vehicle in London last year but only 271 crimes were solved by the Met Police – that’s a paltry 0.5%. [source]
The City of London solved none of its 80 car thefts.
How many stolen vehicles are recovered?
According to Met Police data, from the period 1st January 2021 to 31st December 2021 21,568 vehicles were stolen and a little over 47% of them were recovered.
Which car models are being stolen in London?
Data specific to London is hard to come by but across the UK this is the top ten list of the most stolen cars in the UK:[source]
10. Mercedes E-Class
9. Vauxhall Astra
8. Vauxhall Corsa
7. Land Rover Discovery
6. BMW 3 Series
5. Mercedes C-Class
4. Volkswagen Golf
3. Ford Focus
2. Range Rover
1. Ford Fiesta
Rather specifically the Metropolitan Police recorded 7376 thefts of Land Rovers in London between the beginning of 2019 and the end of January 2022 which equates to an average of over 2000 stolen Land Rovers in the capital every year although it’s worth noting that there are some questions around how this data is logged.[source]
London vehicle crime compared to rest of UK
As we already know, London is officially the UK’s worst place for vehicle crime but in the map projection below we can see just how it compares to other regions in England and Wales.
In the scatter graph below, regions are compared by crime rate and crime rate percentage change. Crime rate percentage change compares the region’s crime rate between September 2021 – August 2022 to the region’s crime rate in the previous 12 months. The size of the circle reflects the crime rate percentage change while the darker colour indicates more total crimes reported[source]. We can see that London has a high number of crimes reported but that the West Midlands has the greatest crime rate percentage change.
Types of theft and crime
Car security technology has naturally evolved over the years in an effort to make our vehicles more secure and harder to steal – and in many respects it has done (there were around 500,000 car crime offences in the mid-1990s compared to around 100,000 today). But in an effort to keep up, criminals have become more sophisticated and this has changed the nature of car crime – where lower value vehicles used to be involved, today’s vehicles are much more expensive and the criminals increasingly professional.
Keyless car theft
Keyless entry has been once such technology that has changed the nature of car theft – keyless car theft in London rose to an all time high in 2021[source]. And UK-wide stats claim that 94% of vehicles are stolen without using the owner’s keys.
Car cloning
Car cloning, that is when a criminal steals another vehicle’s number plate or has duplicate plates made illegally, is also on the rise in London. Data from Transport for London (TfL) suggest that an increase in the number of penalty charge notices (PCNs) being cancelled are due to car cloning. There was an 857 per cent increase in the number of PCNs being cancelled due to cloning when April 2021 was compared to April 2022 .[source]Of course these figures only take into account motorists who appeal and can prove their car has been cloned – some simply pay the fine to avoid stress – which means the real figures could be higher.
Catalytic converters
In 2021 more than 10,000 thefts of catalytic converters were recorded by police in London. Catalytic converters are sought after by criminals as they contain valuable metals which can be sold on.
Conclusion
Despite London being the most densely populated area in the UK and one the most populous cities in Europe, you might expect higher levels of vehicle crime, but the statistics nevertheless paint a sombre picture.
London motorists face not only high levels of vehicle crime but also an increased risk of their vehicle being stolen – and not getting it back. This is compounded by sophisticated criminals who target higher value cars, favoured in the capital, for their assets such as catalytic converters. They also capitalise on the poor opportunities to store cars securely.
Vehicle-owning Londoners can inform themselves about how at risk their vehicle is according to the area they live in, the model of vehicle they own (and therefore its potential vulnerabilities), and where they park it. We hope that this round up of data is one tool they can use to do just that.