M25

M25 Traffic on Fridays

Friday is when the M25 carries the most mixed traffic of the week: commuters, airport runs, lorries for the ports and families leaving London for the weekend.

The charts show how the latest Friday moved, clockwise and anticlockwise, against the Friday before and the usual speed, and the cards name the slowest stretch in each direction.

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M25 on Fridays: Friday 16 October 2026

How traffic on the M25 has moved hour by hour, compared with the same day a week earlier (Friday 9 October 2026) and with National Highways’ usual speed for each hour. Updated every five minutes.

Speeds are colour-coded the same way as our live M25 speed flow map: 50 mph and over, 30 mph to 49 mph, under 30 mph. The colour shows the speed actually achieved; the usual speed is shown in bold beside it.

07:00 (7am)

Anticlockwise · slowest hour against usual

average 46 mph across the road, against a usual 52 mph.

10:00 (10am)

Anticlockwise · slowest stretch

J1B–J2 9 mph, against a usual 50 mph.

16:00 (4pm)

Clockwise · slowest hour against usual

average 39 mph across the road, against a usual 45 mph.

19:00 (7pm)

Clockwise · slowest stretch

J7–J8 4 mph, against a usual 62 mph.

Across the day

Clockwise · stop-start

J30–J31 traffic below 15 mph somewhere on this stretch for about 275 minutes (4.58 hours), between 07:00 (7am) and 19:00 (7pm).

Anticlockwise · stop-start

J1A–J1B traffic below 15 mph somewhere on this stretch for about 135 minutes (2.25 hours), between 09:00 (9am) and 18:00 (6pm).

Clockwise: average speed by hour

Anticlockwise: average speed by hour

Friday 16 October 2026usual speed (National Highways)

How we worked this out. We regularly take National Highways’ live speed data for each stretch of the M25 and keep the average for each hour. These figures cover 24 hours of Friday 16 October 2026 (we have no readings for Friday 9 October 2026, so there is no week-earlier line yet). Hours are UK time. A speed shown for the whole road is the average across its stretches, so a short queue may not move it much: the cards point to the slowest stretches.

© 2026 Corporate Ace Limited. The analysis, wording, charts and conclusions on this page are our own, produced from the live information we collect, including National Highways’ data. You may not copy, republish or reproduce them on any website, app, broadcast or publication without our prior written permission, which must set out how and where they will be used. To ask, please contact us. Powered by National Highways’ Transport Data Feeds.

The M25 on Other Days

For the road right now, see the live M25 speed flow map and the latest M25 traffic news, or look up any junction on the M25 junctions page.