FTSE 100 giant Auto Trader gears up for £87m HQ move
FTSE 100 giant Auto Trader has confirmed plans to relocate its headquarters from a building named after a Manchester legend to a new base worth £87m.
The company is to leave its home at 1 Tony Wilson Place in First Street and move to Bruntwood SciTech’s 3 Circle Square in 2026.
Auto Trader has been based at its current head office since 2014 but will move 900 employees to its new location after a fit out is completed next Spring.
Tony Wilson, who died in 2007, was well known in Manchester for being the co-founder of the independent label Factory Records and founder-manager of the Haçienda nightclub.
He was also behind some of the city’s most successful bands including Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays. Wilson also worked as a journalist for Granada Television, the BBC and Channel 4.
Talks over Auto Trader’s move from 1 Tony Wilson Place to 3 Circle Square were first reported in May last year by property magazine and data business EG.
Bruntwood SciTech’s 3 Circle Square is the £87m phase of a wider development off Oxford Road in the city centre.
The company behind the site is a joint venture between property group Bruntwood, Legal & General and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.
Bruntwood SciTech itself hit the headlines in November 2024 when plans were announced for it to help Imperial College London to build a life sciences and deep tech development worth over £200m in the west of the capital
Companies already based at Circle Square include HPE, Roku, Bosch and the Uber-owned Autocab.
Outside of Manchester, the rest of Auto Trader’s workforce is split between offices in Covent Garden and Hemel Hempstead.
Move ‘reaffirms our unwavering commitment to the city’
Alison Ross, Auto Trader’s chief people and operations director, said: “We are deeply proud of our connection to Manchester, and over the course of the last decade, it’s become ingrained in our culture.
“The access to exceptional digital talent and skills from across the region has been integral to our growth and one of the key reasons why today, we are one of the UK’s largest technology companies.
“To continue to grow, we not only need more space to house our rapidly expanding data and technology teams, but also state-of-the-art facilities which can support their pace of innovation and ambition.
“We also need a space where we can welcome the wider automotive ecosystem, our partners, customers and peers to share data, insights and work collaboratively.
“The relocation of our head office to Circle Square within the heart of Manchester’s thriving tech community will help us to deliver this growth, and it reaffirms our unwavering commitment to the city.”
Circle Square owner eyes further deals
Josh Whiteley, commercial director and Bruntwood SciTech, added: “We are very pleased to welcome Auto Trader to No.3 Circle Square and have them join our community of science, technology and digital innovators.
“Their decision to join us highlights the vibrant, collaborative ecosystem we’ve created within Circle Square and throughout Manchester’s knowledge quarter.
“We’ve seen first-hand how the support we offer and community we’ve built at Circle Square forges connections and promotes knowledge-sharing between large, well established businesses, start ups and scale ups, from the Tech Incubator through to the large scale new buildings.
“All customers have access to the same talent, funding, and networking opportunities to help them develop and reach their full potential.
“As work at No.3 Circle Square progresses, we’re looking forward to welcoming even more forward- thinking businesses to the neighbourhood with more to be announced in the coming months.”
Financial success for Auto Trader despite shares slide
In November 2024, Auto Trader announced its half-year revenue had increased by eight per cent to £302.5m while its pre-tax profits had jumped by 15 per cent to £187.5m.
Commenting on its outlook for 2025 at the time, Auto Trader added: “The new financial year started well with strong growth in retailer forecourts, a good pricing and product event, and growing sales volumes for our customers.
“Retailer forecourts are likely to remain strong and be broadly consistent with that reported in the first half.
“As this increase came from smaller lower yielding retailers, the growth in both the price and product levers was diluted, which we also expect to continue.
“Compared to our original outlook, the impact on revenue from having more retailers but with lower price and product contribution should broadly cancel each other out.”
For its latest full year, Auto Trader’s revenue increased by 14 per cent to £570.9m while its pre-tax profit jumped 18 per cent to £345.2m.
Those results saw the company’s share price surge to an all-time high, a price of 825p, which was later beaten by the 892p it achieved in October 2024.
Shares in Auto Trader have fallen since and are currently trading at around 777p.