Quick hits
- Website
- motorway.co.uk
- Founded
- 2017, by Tom Leathes, Alex Buttle and Harry Jones
- Company headcount
- 400+ people
- Funding
- $190m Series C in November 2021
- Backers include
- Index Ventures and ICONIQ Growth
- Your team
- The Heads of Transport and Payments, with their teams, including a payments operations team in Brighton
- Reporting to
- James Wilson, Chief Operating Officer. You join the senior leadership team.
- Customers
- More than 7,500 verified dealers across the UK, with hundreds of thousands of car sales each year and around 2,500 cars in the daily auction
- Noteworthy
- An Excellent rating on Trustpilot
- Compensation
- To be confirmed
- Location
- London office, with regular time in our Brighton office where our operational teams are based
- Employment
- Full-time
Company information
Motorway is the UK's first and biggest car-selling platform. Tom Leathes, Alex Buttle and Harry Jones founded it in 2017 to make selling a car faster, fairer and far less painful. Private sellers list their car from their phone, and more than 7,500 verified dealers compete to buy it in a daily online auction. Sellers get market-leading prices. Dealers get fast, reliable access to the stock they want to grow their businesses profitably.
Motorway now facilitates hundreds of thousands of car sales each year. More than 400 people work for the company, with headquarters in London and an office in Brighton. Index Ventures and ICONIQ Growth are among the investors.
The business is entering a phase focused on scale, growth and profitability. Dealer Solutions sits at the centre of that: the services around every car sold on Motorway shape how dealers experience us and how much of each transaction we serve.
Press and media
Founder voices
Hear Harry and Tom explain why they started Motorway and how they think about building it.
Building Motorway: From Bootstrapped Grit to a £250M+ Backed Unicorn
Tech Talks with Tom Leathes, 2025
Motorway's Tom Leathes
Startup Europe, The Sifted Podcast, 2025
Motorway CEO Tom Leathes on the journey to unicorn status
Evening Standard, How to be a CEO, 2024
Proof the model works
Independent coverage and rankings of how the business is performing.
Sunday Times Tech 100: the best UK tech companies of 2025
A third-party ranking that placed Motorway 17th overall and 3rd for revenue.
https://www.thetimes.com/sunday-times-100-tech/tech-feature/article/best-uk-tech-companies-2025-qzt9lcmndMotorway eyes first profit as Premier League deal grows customer base
Tom Leathes on Motorway's growth, its Premier League broadcast sponsorship and how electric and Chinese-made cars may reach the used market.
https://www.cityam.com/motorway-eyes-first-profit-as-premier-league-deal-grows-customer-base/Why this British tech company is succeeding where Cazoo failed
Tom Leathes explains why Motorway's marketplace model has worked where Cazoo's did not.
https://www.cityam.com/why-this-british-tech-company-is-succeeding-where-cazoo-failed/What's next for dealers
New services Motorway is building for the dealers who buy on the platform.
Motorway launches remarketing service with Mobilize Financial Services
A new enterprise remarketing service gives dealers a fresh supply of end-of-finance cars through the platform they already use, with Mobilize as its first partner.
https://www.am-online.com/news/motorway-launches-remarketing-service-with-mobilize-financial-servicesDemand for ex-fleet EVs partly inspires Motorway remarketing move
James Wilson explains why Motorway entered remarketing: dealer demand for ex-fleet electric cars and a faster route from lessee to dealer.
https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/demand-for-ex-fleet-evs-partly-inspires-motorway-remarketing-moveMotorway launches AI WhatsApp assistant to help dealers find used car stock
Oto lets dealers search the daily auction by sending a WhatsApp message, and alerts them when matching cars arrive.
https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/motorway-launches-ai-whatsapp-assistant-to-help-dealers-find-used-car-stock/328214Motorway on screen
Two recent Motorway adverts.
How Motorway works
Motorway gives sellers a digital-first way to sell their car, connecting them directly with a nationwide network of verified dealers.
Value the car
The seller enters a registration number and gets an instant estimated sale price, based on live market data.
Profile the vehicle
The seller takes guided photos on their phone, with on-screen prompts to capture the best shots.
Agree a reserve price
Motorway agrees a reserve price with the seller after assessing the car's condition and history.
Receive the highest offer
The car enters a daily online sale where more than 7,500 verified dealers compete to buy it. The seller can accept the highest offer.
Complete the sale
The dealer arranges collection at a convenient time. Once the car has been checked against its profile, payment goes directly to the seller's bank account.
Step 5 and everything after the auction closes belongs to Dealer Solutions. Transport moves the car, Payments settles the sale, and Dealer finance helps dealers fund the stock they buy.
Leadership team
- Tom LeathesCo-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
- Harry JonesCo-Founder, Product team
- James WilsonChief Operating Officer, your manager
- Naomi WalklandChief Marketing Officer
- Nehal BhayaniChief People Officer
- Nic HartleyVice President, Customer Experience
- Asif GhulamaliVice President, Finance
Role and responsibilities
Transport and Payments both have executive and board visibility, and we are reviewing all of our options for how far to extend dealer finance. You would set the direction, own the P&L and work through the operational detail alongside experienced specialists when it matters.
Our dealer base and partnerships are growing, and Dealer Solutions has to scale ahead of that demand while staying simple and reliable for dealers and sellers. The scope covers three areas today and will grow as we add new services for dealers.
Strategy and commercial leadership
- Set the vision, strategy and goals for Transport, Payments and Dealer finance, with clear priorities over short and long horizons.
- Own the P&L for Dealer Solutions and make explicit trade-offs between growth, margin and customer experience.
- Build investment cases for the executive team and contribute to Motorway's wider strategy.
Transport
- Lead the strategy and performance of our vehicle transport proposition and keep capacity ahead of demand.
- Grow a network of logistics partners with strong commercial terms and clear performance management.
- Improve reliability, speed and cost so dealers and sellers get a fast, predictable experience.
Payments
- Own the commercial performance of our dealer payment products and drive adoption.
- Work with Product and Engineering on phased launches with clear success measures.
Dealer finance
- Shape and grow our dealer finance proposition, including stock funding. We are reviewing all of the options, so you will help decide what we build and what we partner on.
- Develop the commercial model, partnerships and go-to-market approach to scale it.
Performance and operating rhythm
- Set clear metrics for each service and a regular operating cadence, and use data to find root causes.
- Make sure operations can absorb growth and seasonal peaks without hurting the customer experience.
Leadership and collaboration
- Lead and develop experienced specialist teams: add commercial framing and clear priorities, and leave room for experts to lead.
- Work closely with Sales, Marketing, Operations, Product and Engineering.
- Manage key partners and suppliers, and onboard new ones as we need them.
Competencies, skills and experience
Commercial strategy and agenda setting
- You turn two complex workstreams into one clear strategy with explicit trade-offs, and land it with the exec and the wider business.
- You start from the customer's problem and work back to the solution.
- You talk in pounds, unit economics, margin and payback, and you can say what you would not do and why.
- You have presented and defended an investment case at exec level.
Scaling partner networks
- You have grown supplier or partner capacity several times over, with performance management that held up.
- You have scaled a network of carriers, couriers or fulfilment partners that you do not own.
- You understand concentration risk and know how to diversify it.
- You have handled a demand surge and fixed the root cause as well as the backlog.
Operations management and continuous improvement
- You have run operational teams directly and can talk fluently about SLAs, cost to serve, contact drivers and quality.
- You plan capacity ahead of demand using forecasting and workforce planning.
- You replace spreadsheets and manual steps with tooling, automation and AI, and get teams trained and using it.
- You run a regular operating cadence of daily and weekly metrics and root-cause reviews.
Commercialising solutions
- You take technically strong products and drive adoption, revenue and dealer behaviour change.
- You design incentives and pricing that change customer behaviour without giving away margin, and you know when to give up margin for long-term gain.
- You favour phased rollouts with clear stop thresholds.
- You understand the basics of a lending business: platform, funding, credit risk and scale.
Cross-functional partnership
- You have shaped a product roadmap without owning the team.
- You start with evidence and pick the fastest route to the outcome, whether that is a build or an operational fix.
- You have built a sales plan that landed with front-line sellers.
- You run launches across functions, have fixed one that went wrong, and build trust by following through.
Situational leadership of strong specialists
- You have led people who know their domain better than you do.
- You add commercial framing, clear priorities and cover, then step back once they are ready to run.
- You build team resilience and remove single points of failure.
- You know when to be in the detail and when to step back, and you can explain how you decide.
The interview process
Seven steps, from a 30 minute conversation with Talent to meeting Tom, our Chief Executive Officer. Open any step to see who you will meet and what we will cover.
Talent screen
A conversation about why this role and why Motorway, and a first look at your experience.
Conversation with James
James wants to understand how you think commercially and how you would prioritise across Transport and Payments.
Written exercise
Describe a time you took ownership of an operational or commercial area and materially changed its performance. James will use it to prepare for your next conversation.
Hiring manager interview
James goes through your written answer with you and explores how you make commercial trade-offs, lead specialists and handle operational pressure.
Leadership and culture
Nehal covers situational leadership, how you develop strong specialists, lead your team and build resilient teams, and how you fit with Motorway's values.
Operations leadership and execution
Nic covers capacity planning, launch readiness and how you run service quality and cost through metrics.
Interview with Tom
Tom wants to hear how you set a strategic agenda and communicate at board level, and how you see the opportunities in Transport and Dealer finance.
Your contacts
Dan
Talent Acquisition Lead
Your point of contact for the whole process. Ask Dan anything about the role, the team or the steps above.
James Wilson
Chief Operating Officer
The hiring manager. You would report to James.