Only 1 in 10 forecourts now charge £2 for diesel, down from more than 1 in 3 in early October

Update, 11 November 2026: diesel at 196.7p, the lowest in our series, and 8.1% of forecourts at £2

Diesel at 196.7p a litre is the lowest UK average in our series, which began on 24 September 2026. On the morning of 11 November, 438 of the 5,398 forecourts reporting a diesel price to Fuel Finder charged 200p a litre or more: 8.1%, also the lowest in our series. That is down from 10.1% when we published this story on 9 November, and from 15.9% a week ago, on 4 November: a fall of 7.8 points in seven days. Petrol averaged 167.8p across 7,255 forecourts, the lowest in our series too.

More forecourts are reporting a diesel price than two days ago (5,398 against 4,603), and the extra ones are less likely to be at £2, so part of the fall in the share comes from who is reporting. The number at £2 or more has fallen less, to 438 from 466. The fall still holds on the same forecourts. Of the 4,461 in our station cache that reported diesel on both 9 and 11 November, 10.2% were at £2 or more then and 8.4% are now. Of the 3,220 that reported on both 4 and 11 November, 17.1% were at £2 or more a week ago and 9.9% are now.

By brand, off the motorway, 17.8% of Shell-branded forecourts were at £2 or more on 11 November (124 of 698), against 19.5% on 9 November. BP-branded fell to 8.4% (54 of 642, from 11.2%) and Esso-branded to 4.1% (38 of 923, from 7.2%). Gulf-branded rose, from 9.9% to 12.7% (21 of 165). No Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's or Morrisons forecourt was at £2 or more: 0 of 1,088. Motorway services are still the exception: 122 of the 136 motorway forecourts in our cache charged £2 or more, and they are now 28% of every forecourt still at £2.

The average has moved less than the share. A 55-litre tank at 196.7p costs £108.19, 22p less than on 9 November and £1.98 less than at the early-October peak of 200.3p. Motorway diesel averaged 213.2p against 196.3p off the motorway, a gap of 16.9p a litre (17.6p on 9 November), about £9.30 a tank. Supermarket forecourts averaged 194.1p against 197.2p elsewhere, a saving of 3.1p. And 622 forecourts in our cache, 11.6%, charge between 199.0p and 199.9p, just under £2. The postcode lookup on our live fuel price tracker shows prices near you.

These figures are as of 06:19 UTC on 11 November, using the same method as the rest of this story (below); the 4 November figures come from our station cache that day. The sections below are as published on 9 November. We make no forecast of where prices go next.

1 in 10 forecourts at £2 for diesel, the lowest share in our series

Every UK forecourt must report its prices to Fuel Finder, the statutory scheme run by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. We read the feed every day. On 9 November, 466 of the 4,603 forecourts reporting a diesel price charged 200p a litre or more: 10.1%, or about 1 in 10.

That is the lowest share since our series began on 24 September 2026, when it was 20.3%. It climbed to a peak of 35.7% on 4 October, more than 1 in 3 forecourts, and has fallen most days since: 33.6% on 12 October, 24.1% on the morning of 20 October, when we broke the figure down by brand, 18.4% a week ago on 2 November and 12.3% yesterday.

UK average diesel was 197.1p a litre on 9 November, the lowest in our series; it peaked at 200.3p on 3 to 5 October. Petrol was 168.6p across 7,102 forecourts, down 2.6p in seven days and also the lowest in our series.

The number of forecourts with a diesel price confirmed in the last 14 days moves from day to day (5,264 on 20 October, 4,603 today), so we checked the fall on the same forecourts. Of 2,793 forecourts that reported diesel both on 2 November and today, 19.0% were at £2 or more a week ago and 10.7% are now. The fall is in the prices, not in who is reporting.

Who still charges £2: by brand

Off the motorway, 132 of the 676 Shell-branded forecourts reporting a diesel price were at 200p or more on 9 November: 19.5%, down from 64.5% on 20 October. Shell-branded forecourts averaged 198.9p, against 201.7p then. BP-branded forecourts averaged 198.0p, with 58 of 517 at £2 or more (11.2%, from 38.6%). Esso-branded forecourts averaged 197.9p, with 52 of 719 at £2 or more (7.2%, from 28.0%).

Gulf-branded forecourts sit between BP and Esso, at 9.9% (from 23.7%), and Murco is at 4.8% (from 10.4%). Valero has fallen from 21.6% to 1 forecourt of 112, Texaco from 7.2% to 1.4% and Jet from 3.0% to 1.3%. A week ago, on 2 November, the off-motorway shares were 33.1% for Shell, 26.6% for BP and 14.9% for Esso.

No forecourt branded Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's or Morrisons charged £2 or more for diesel on 9 November: 0 of 915 reporting a diesel price, against 3 of 1,208 on 20 October. Their averages were Tesco 194.8p, Asda 194.9p, Sainsbury's 195.1p and Morrisons 195.5p. On the feed's own supermarket flag, supermarket forecourts averaged 194.3p against 197.5p elsewhere: a saving of 3.2p a litre, the smallest since 8 October.

Shell, BP and Esso carry 327 of the 464 forecourts at £2 or more in our station cache, about seven in ten, down from four in five on 20 October. The brand on the canopy is not always the company setting the price: many Shell-, BP- and Esso-branded forecourts are owned and priced by independent dealers. Fuel Finder records what each forecourt charges, not who decided it or why.

Motorway services are now a quarter of the £2 forecourts

As ordinary forecourts have come down, the motorway sites stand out more. Of the 127 motorway forecourts reporting diesel on 9 November, 114 charged £2 or more, and they are now about a quarter of every forecourt still at £2, against fewer than one in ten on 20 October. Off the motorway, 7.8% of forecourts are at £2 or more.

Motorway diesel averaged 214.2p against 196.6p off the motorway: a gap of 17.6p a litre, the narrowest since 18 October but wider than on any day before 15 October. Welcome Break, a motorway-only brand, had 25 of its 26 forecourts at £2 or more. BP's brand is on 73 motorway forecourts in today's count and Shell's on 13, so across all sites 21.9% of BP-branded forecourts and 20.6% of Shell-branded ones are at £2 or more. Our motorway story has more on the gap.

Where £2 diesel is still most common

By nation, Scotland stands out. Going by postcode, 96 of 429 forecourts in Scotland reporting a diesel price, 22.4%, charged £2 or more on 9 November, more than twice England's 10.0% (352 of 3,516). In Wales it was 5.7% (15 of 264) and in Northern Ireland 1 forecourt of 384. On the feed's own figures, average diesel was 198.8p in Scotland, 197.8p in England, 197.1p in Wales and 188.6p in Northern Ireland. On 20 October Scotland's average was 199.8p, so it has come down by 1.0p, against 1.7p in England.

Among postcode areas with at least 25 forecourts reporting diesel off the motorway, £2 diesel is most common in Inverness (IV, 14 of 34 forecourts, 41%), Paisley (PA, 10 of 28, 36%), Chelmsford (CM, 11 of 31, 35%), Exeter (EX, 13 of 48, 27%) and Southampton (SO, 10 of 41, 24%). Those are also the dearest areas on average, with Paisley (201.4p), Inverness (200.8p) and Chelmsford (200.2p) the only three averaging over £2.

On 20 October, eight areas had half or more of their forecourts at £2, led by Kingston upon Thames (KT, 78%), Inverness (66%) and Cambridge (CB, 65%). None does now: Kingston is at 19% and Cambridge at 12%. In 20 of the 78 areas we can measure, no off-motorway forecourt is at £2, including Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Cardiff and Swansea. The cheapest areas on average are Northern Ireland (BT, 188.6p), Liverpool (L, 194.5p), Bolton (BL, 194.5p) and Wakefield (WF, 194.8p).

What a tank costs now

For a 55-litre tank at the UK average, diesel costs £108.41 today, against £110.17 at the peak of 200.3p in early October: £1.76 less. The share of forecourts at £2 has fallen much further than the average, because many forecourts that were just above £2 are now just below it: 617 forecourts, 13.4% of those reporting, charge between 199.0p and 199.9p.

Where you fill up matters more. The motorway premium of 17.6p a litre is £9.68 a tank. The supermarket saving of 3.2p is £1.76. Off the motorway, the Shell-branded average is 4.1p above the Tesco-branded average, £2.26 a tank (5.9p, or £3.25, on 20 October). And the spread within a brand is wider than the gap between brands: Shell-branded forecourts off the motorway range from 189.9p to 217.9p, 28p a litre or £15.40 a tank.

How to find the cheapest diesel near you

The postcode lookup on our live fuel price tracker shows Fuel Finder prices at the forecourts nearest you. Use it rather than choosing by the sign, because the spread within a brand is bigger than the gap between brands. Home Alerts members see Fuel Finder prices within 10 miles of home.

Avoid filling up at motorway services if you can plan around it: it is the biggest single saving, close to £10 a tank. Do not drive miles out of your way for a supermarket forecourt; a detour can cost more than the 3.2p a litre it saves. For why diesel costs more than petrol, see why is diesel so expensive.

How we measure this

Fuel Finder is the statutory UK fuel price scheme run by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Forecourts must report their prices to it. We read the feed daily and average standard diesel (B7) across every forecourt with a diesel price confirmed in the last 14 days. The figures in this story are as of 9 November at 18:20 UTC; the share at £2 or more is the daily reading on our tracker, one a day since 24 September 2026.

Brand figures use the brand each forecourt reports to Fuel Finder, or its trading name where it reports none; every forecourt reporting as Asda counts as Asda. We show brands with at least 20 forecourts reporting a diesel price, off the motorway unless we say otherwise. Postcode areas need 25 or more off-motorway forecourts reporting diesel. Nations come from each forecourt's postcode; the nation averages match the feed's own. Our station cache holds 4,593 of the 4,603 diesel prices (it leaves out forecourts with a closure flag or a coordinate outside their postcode area), so it counts 464 at £2 or more against the tracker's 466. Week-ago figures come from our 2 November station cache; 20 October figures are from our story that day.

We publish aggregates only, under the scheme's terms, and never a single forecourt's price: the lowest and highest prices within a brand are statistics, not locations. "Lowest in our series" means since 24 September 2026. We make no forecast of where prices go next.