We asked UK consumers about "Most used search engines by brand" and found that "Google" takes the top spot, while "WebCrawler" is at the other end of the ranking.These results are based on a representative online survey conducted in 2024 among 2,015 consumers in the UK.

In January 2025, Google remained by far the most popular search engine in the UK, holding a market share of 93.25 percent across all devices. That month, Bing had a market share of approximately 4.22 percent in second place, followed by Yahoo! with approximately 1.37 percent. The EU vs Google Despite Google’s dominance of the search engine market, maintaining its position at the top has not been a smooth ride. Google’s market share saw a decline in the summer of 2018, plummeting to an all-time-low in July. The search engine experienced a similar dip in June and July 2017. These two low points coincided with the European Commission’s antitrust charges against the company, both of which were unprecedented in the now decade-long duel between both parties. As skepticism towards search engine platforms grows in line with public concern regarding censorship and data privacy, alternative services like Duckduckgo offer users both information protection and unfiltered results. Despite this, it still held less than one percent of the industry’s market share as of June 2021. Perception of fake news in the UK According to a questionnaire conducted in the United Kingdom in 2018, 57.7 percent of respondents had come across inaccurate news on social media at least once before. Rising concerns over fake news, or information which has been manipulated to influence the public has been a hot topic in recent years. The younger generation however, remains skeptical with nearly half of Generation Z claiming to be either unconcerned about fake news, or believed that it did not exist altogether.  

In March 2024, Google was the most popular search engine in the UK, holding a market share of 93.61 percent across all devices. Bing had a relatively large market share of approximately 3.94 percent in second place, followed by Yahoo! with approximately 1.35 percent.

The Search Engine industry is highly concentrated, with three companies controlling almost the entire industry; the largest company, Alphabet Inc., has a market share greater than 96%. Search engines provide web portals that generate and maintain extensive databases of internet addresses. Industry companies generate most, if not all, of their revenue from advertising. Technological growth has resulted in more households being connected to the Internet, and a boom in e-commerce has made the industry increasingly innovative. Over the past decade, a climb in the percentage of households with internet access has supported revenue growth, while increasing technological integration with daily life has increased demand for industry services. A greater proportion of transactions being carried out online has driven innovation in targeted digital advertising, with declines in rival advertising formats like print media and television increasing the focus on digital marketing as a core strategy. Industry revenue is expected to increase at a compound annual rate of 4.7%, to reach £5.1 billion over the five years through 2024-25. Revenue is forecast to climb by 4.7% in 2024-25. Industry profit has remained high, expanding to 34.2% in 2024-25. The rise of the mobile advertising market and the proliferation of mobile devices mean there are plenty of opportunities for search engines, which are expected to capitalise on these trends further moving forward. Smartphones could disrupt the industry's status quo, as the rising popularity of devices that do not use Google as the default engine benefits other search providers. Technological advancements that incorporate user data are anticipated to make it easier to tailor advertisements and develop new ways of using consumer data. Industry revenue is forecast to jump at a compound annual rate of 6% over the five years through 2029-30, to reach £6.8 billion.

In January 2025, Google had the highest market share by far with 81.1 percent of the desktop search engine market in the UK. Bing and Yahoo! followed, representing a share of 12.5 percent and 2.5 percent each.

In January 2025 Google represented a market of share of 93.24 percent across all devices, maintaining its post as the most popular search engine in the United Kingdom since January 2018 Google competitors in the UK After Google, the second most popular search engine site in the UK is Bing. Bing had a market share of 4.13 percent as of January 2024. Yahoo! had a 1.3 percent share of the search engine market in the UK during the same month. Search engines in the UK Further information on the use of search engines in the United Kingdom can be found in the Statista dossier on search engines in the United Kingdom, and more information on Google in the UK can be found in the Google in the United Kingdom Statista dossier.  

In 2023, a majority of search engine users in the United Kingdom (UK), 65 percent, thought that some of the websites would be accurate and some won't be. From 2012 to 2023, the share of respondents who expressed their opinion that the websites listed in the search results would contain accurate and unbiased information fluctuated between 18 and 25 percent. During the most recent survey period, it was revealed that six percent of responding individuals who had ever used search engines reported that they did not think of accuracy or unbiased information and rather used the sites they liked the look of.

Virgin Islands (British) Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Coc Coc data was reported at 0.000 % in 02 Feb 2024. This stayed constant from the previous number of 0.000 % for 01 Feb 2024. Virgin Islands (British) Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Coc Coc data is updated daily, averaging 0.000 % from Jan 2024 (Median) to 02 Feb 2024, with 9 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.920 % in 29 Jan 2024 and a record low of 0.000 % in 02 Feb 2024. Virgin Islands (British) Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share: Mobile: Coc Coc data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statcounter Global Stats. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Virgin Islands (British) – Table VG.SC.IU: Internet Usage: Search Engine Market Share.

In January 2025, Google represented 97.54 percent of the UK's mobile search engine market share. Yahoo! ranked second, with 0.98 percent, while all other search hosts also representing less than one percent each.

Apple and Microsoft command over a 90 percent share of the desktop operating system market in the United Kingdom (UK), as of 2024. Microsoft’s product, Windows, held 68.24 percent of the market, while Apple’s macOS held 23.65 percent. Browsers and search engines used on desktops Desktop searches made up 49 percent of search engine activity as of April 2023, ahead of the 46 percent held by mobile phones. Google is not only the preferred search engine for 86.3 percent of UK desktop users, it is also the developer of Chrome, the preferred browser for 59 percent of internet users in the UK. Share of households with home computers steady The share of households with home computers in the UK has remained steady since 2015-16, with 88 percent of households owning such a machine according to the UK Office for National Statistics. The average weekly retail sales value of computers and telecommunications in the UK amounted to 96.8 million British pounds in October 2023.

In 2022, the majority of search engine users in the United Kingdom (UK) remained relatively skeptical about the overall truthfulness of information they found online through search engines. On one side, 47 percent of respondents claimed that only some of the information they found online was truthful, while 46 percent of the interviewees believed in most of the information provided by these tools. When thinking about the search engines themselves, around 65 percent of respondents thought that some of the websites would be accurate and some would not be when displaying search results.

In April 2023, desktop computer searches represented 49.17 percent of the search engine market in the UK. Mobile searches followed with 45.97 percent, with the remaining 4.86 percent for consoles.

link structure of 125 UK university institutions, as of June, 2003

According to the survey conducted in the third quarter of 2023, around 37 percent of internet users in the United Kingdom reported discovering new brands via search engines. Approximately 34 percent of the respondents came upon new brands via ads on TV. Meanwhile, roughly one-quarter of the respondents found new brands via social media ads.

In January 2024, Bing held a 4.13 percent share of the search market in the United Kingdom (UK) across all devices. Meanwhile, Google held a much larger share of the UK's online search market.

Bing on the world stage  Google holds a similar share of the global desktop search market as it does in the UK. Outside of the UK, Bing attracts an increasing 10.51 percent share of the market. Worldwide, Bing regularly attracts more than 1.3 billion unique monthly visitors.

Google and mobile: an unfair advantage?  Bing held just a 1.4 percent of the mobile search market in the UK in June 2021. Despite being significantly lower than their overall share, this was still good enough to give Bing second place in the market, due to Google’s absolute dominance of mobile search in the UK. According to European regulators, however, the means with which Google achieved their dominance is neither fair nor legal.

In 2019, Google was fined 1.5 billion euros for effectively forcing manufacturers of android-based equipment to bundle Chrome and Google search with their devices, in order to access other Google services. As a result of that ruling, users setting up android devices in Europe from the start of 2020 will be able to choose from a list of available default search providers. The available options of the list will vary country to country, based on a bidding process in which rival search engines indicate to Google exactly how much they would be willing to pay per user selecting their company as the default search provider.

Engine generator imports into the UK soared to 1.4M units in 2023, picking up by 33% compared with the year before.

A 2023 survey in the U.S. and UK revealed that search engines were the primary online platform for consumers to discover brands and products. Online marketplaces closely followed, with 47 percent of respondents using this channel. Social media was utilized by 43 percent of those surveyed, retail sites by 21 percent, brand websites by 19 percent, and delivery apps lagged with just 4 percent.

In 2023, the amount of equipment for internal combustion engines imported into the UK contracted to 3.5M units, declining by -5.4% on the year before.

For the fourth consecutive year, the UK recorded growth in overseas shipments of civil reaction engines, which increased by 29% to 36K units in 2023.

Explore the historical Whois records related to engine-mobile.co.uk (Domain). Get insights into ownership history and changes over time.