M6 Traffic on Fridays

How traffic on the M6 moved, hour by hour, on the most recent Friday. The cards pick out the slowest hour, the slowest stretch and any stop-start traffic in each direction; the charts show every hour against the same Friday a week earlier and against the speed National Highways normally expects. On a Friday the page fills in as the day goes on.

M6 on Fridays: Friday 23 October 2026, so far

How traffic on the M6 has moved hour by hour today so far, compared with the same day a week earlier (Friday 16 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 M6 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.

02:00 (2am)

Southbound · slowest hour against usual

average 56 mph across the road, against a usual 57 mph; the same hour last week 58 mph.

Southbound · slowest stretch

J4–J4A 28 mph, against a usual 57 mph.

03:00 (3am)

Northbound · slowest hour against usual

average 55 mph across the road, against a usual 57 mph; the same hour last week 57 mph.

Northbound · slowest stretch

J4–J4A 25 mph, against a usual 55 mph.

Across the day

Northbound · stop-start

J25–J26 traffic below 15 mph somewhere on this stretch for about 70 minutes (1.17 hours), between 02:00 (2am) and 04:00 (4am).

Northbound · against last week

about the same as last Friday: average 56 mph over 6 hours, against 57 mph in the same hours.

Southbound · stop-start

J5–J6 traffic below 15 mph somewhere on this stretch for about 45 minutes, between 05:00 (5am) and 06:00 (6am).

Southbound · against last week

about the same as last Friday: average 57 mph over 6 hours, against 58 mph in the same hours.

Northbound: average speed by hour

Southbound: average speed by hour

Friday 23 October 2026 (so far)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 M6 and keep the average for each hour. These figures cover 6 hours of Friday 23 October 2026 and 6 of Friday 16 October 2026. 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.