In 2025, Meta's Facebook held approximately ***** percent of the social network market in the United Kingdom, while X (formerly Twitter) accounted for approximately ******percent. Overall, Instagram held *****percent of the social network market in the UK.

Over the five years through 2025-26, industry revenue is forecast to expand at a compound annual rate of 20.3% to reach £12.5 billion. Social media platforms are integral to people's lives, offering ways to communicate, create and view content and share information. According to Ofcom, approximately 89% of UK internet users in 2023 used social media apps or sites. Teenagers and young adults are the biggest users. Advertising is the primary revenue source for social media platforms, although subscription-based services are gaining momentum as platforms seek to diversify their incomes. TikTok is the success story of the past five years, becoming the most downloaded app between 2020 and 2022, according to Apptopia. The short-form video platform has over 30 million monthly users in the UK in 2025. After Musk's takeover, X, formerly known as Twitter, adjusted its content moderation and allowed previously banned accounts to return. As a result, over 600 advertisers pulled their ads from the site because of fears their brand may be associated with malcontent. In response to falling ad revenue, X has introduced a subscription-based service which enables users to verify themselves and boosts the number of people who view their tweets. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram have responded by introducing a similar service. In 2025, more social media platforms are using AI to boost user engagement. This improves click-through rates and drives higher advertising revenue. Industry revenue is expected to grow by 6.3% in 2025-26. Over the five years through 2030-31, social media platforms' revenue is projected to climb at an estimated 9.2% to reach £19.4 billion. Regulations relating to how data is collected, stored, and shared will force advertisers and platforms to rethink how they can target their desired demographics. The tightening of regulations will raise industry compliance costs, weighing on profit margin. Older age groups present a new revenue opportunity for social media platforms if they can bridge the gap between passive TV consumption and interactive digital engagement. Augmented Reality (AR) technology will move beyond filters to become standard for immersive product trials, interactive ads, and virtual meetups

As of the third quarter of 2024, WhatsApp was the most active social network among internet users in the United Kingdom (UK), with 79.9 percent of internet users reporting use of the service. Facebook was very close behind, with a rate of 72.3 percent, followed by Facebook Messenger with 56.6 percent. YouTube’s broad audience in the United Kingdom YouTube reaches a broad audience in the UK, making it an attractive partner for advertisers of almost any product. More than 75 percent of individuals of every income bracket watch YouTube, with the likelihood of watching increasing with the pay-grade. Whether advertising basic items or luxury products, marketers should be able to connect with UK audiences through YouTube. There are almost no people in the UK to not use YouTube at least monthly. According to a survey conducted in the third quarter of 2020, 46 percent of respondents went on YouTube on a daily basis. Facebook in the United Kingdom  Facebook enjoys a healthy market position in the UK, holding an estimated  55 percent share of the market. The service attracted  50.6 million UK users during May 2021, and Facebook UK Limited  generated 1.1 billion British pounds in revenue  during 2019. The UK division of the company  posted an operating profit of 121.9 million British pounds that year. 

According to a 2020 survey run in the United Kingdom (UK), Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp was the most popular social media platform among those aged 26 to 35. Out of all the respondents, 85 percent had an account on the social networking site. Facebook came in second place, with 80 percent of respondents claiming they used the service while YouTube and Instagram featured third and fourth respectively.

Facebook as a leading digital ad platform

Facebook continues to dominate the social media market in the UK, its penetration rate having been on the rise since 2015. By 2022, the social media platform’s share of monthly active users is forecast to reach 62.44 percent of the United Kingdom’s population. As a platform with such widespread reach not just within the UK but around the world, Facebook is perfectly poised to become a leading online advertising tool. In fact, the social network giant brought in nearly 23 percent of all digital advertising revenue in the United Kingdom in 2018, the highest among all social media platforms. This is forecasted to reach 28 percent by 2021, narrowing the gap with market leader Google.

The news and social media

Facebook remains, albeit to a lesser extent, a news source for nearly 30 percent in the United Kingdom according to figures until 2018. Although this number is significantly lower than in countries such as Italy and Spain where around half of the surveyed population turned to Facebook for news, it is no small figure and one would think that such numbers would reflect a positive perception of social media as a news source. A 2019 survey demonstrated however, that this was not the case with social media ranking lowest in terms of level of trust against other sources such as traditional media, online media, and owned media.

According to data from February 2025, Facebook was the most popular social network for news access in the United Kingdom, with ** percent of respondents using the service. YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) ranked second and third, with ** and ** percent of users respectively using the networks for news content.

The number of Instagram users in the United Kingdom was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by in total 2.1 million users (+7.02 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the Instagram user base is estimated to reach 32 million users and therefore a new peak in 2028. Notably, the number of Instagram users of was continuously increasing over the past years.User figures, shown here with regards to the platform instagram, have been estimated by taking into account company filings or press material, secondary research, app downloads and traffic data. They refer to the average monthly active users over the period and count multiple accounts by persons only once.The shown data are an excerpt of Statista's Key Market Indicators (KMI). The KMI are a collection of primary and secondary indicators on the macro-economic, demographic and technological environment in up to 150 countries and regions worldwide. All indicators are sourced from international and national statistical offices, trade associations and the trade press and they are processed to generate comparable data sets (see supplementary notes under details for more information).

Facebook is the most well-known social network among internet users in the UK, with a brand awareness of 96 percent. This crown is highly contested, with Instagram and YouTube being recognized by 95% of respondents each. TikTok reaches a brand awareness of 93%, while 90% of adult internet users in the United Kingdom know Snapchat.For this study, brand awareness was surveyed employing the concept of aided brand recognition, showing respondents both the brand's logo and the written brand name.

In an online survey conducted during the third quarter of 2024, **** percent of internet users in the United Kingdom reported that WhatsApp was their favorite social media platform, whilst **** percent said that Facebook was their favorite. Overall, only around *** in *** users said that TikTok was their favorite social media service, even though brand awareness of the app is high in the UK.

As of November 2023, ****** was the most popular online platforms among children and teens aged between three and 17 years in the United Kingdom. ******** followed, with ** percent of respondents reporting to use the chat app. ********* ranked third, with around ** percent of young users engaging with the popular social video platform as of November 2022. What do UK kids do on their mobiles? Apart from homework, research, and conducting school projects, kids look for entertainment on their phones. In 2022, YouTube was the most popular video app for younger audiences, with almost ***** in ** kids in the UK engaging with the popular social video platform. Despite YouTube’s popularity, downloads of the YouTube Kids app have experienced a decrease recently, going from **** million downloads in 2020 to approximately *** million downloads in 2022. Gaming was also a popular activity for the younger app usage generation, with ***** in ** UK kids reporting to use Roblox on their smartphones. Tech for parents: helping children using apps in the best way While institutions agree that kids’ online safety cannot be left to individuals alone, UK parents have been deeply concerned with what can be done with their personal forces to ensure online safety and privacy are respected. As of November 2022, ** percent of parents of boys and ** percent of parents of girls were aware of the possibility of asking their mobile phone networks to block access to adult or inappropriate content. Over ****in ** parents of kids aged between eight and 11 used parental control apps, but only about ****in ** parents of kids between three and 17 years of age reported doing the same.

Twitter is ranked as the 12h most popular social media site in the world. The platform currently has 611 million active monthly users.

The statistic illustrates findings of a survey among the residents aged 46-55 regarding the use of social media in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020. During the survey period, it was found that 79 percent of respondents that go online were Facebook users.

How many people use social media?

              Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2024, over five billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over six billion in 2028.

              Who uses social media?
              Social networking is one of the most popular digital activities worldwide and it is no surprise that social networking penetration across all regions is constantly increasing. As of January 2023, the global social media usage rate stood at 59 percent. This figure is anticipated to grow as lesser developed digital markets catch up with other regions
              when it comes to infrastructure development and the availability of cheap mobile devices. In fact, most of social media’s global growth is driven by the increasing usage of mobile devices. Mobile-first market Eastern Asia topped the global ranking of mobile social networking penetration, followed by established digital powerhouses such as the Americas and Northern Europe.

              How much time do people spend on social media?
              Social media is an integral part of daily internet usage. On average, internet users spend 151 minutes per day on social media and messaging apps, an increase of 40 minutes since 2015. On average, internet users in Latin America had the highest average time spent per day on social media.

              What are the most popular social media platforms?
              Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately 2.9 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social network worldwide. In June 2023, the top social media apps in the Apple App Store included mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Telegram Messenger, as well as the ever-popular app version of Facebook.

In November 2024, Google.com was the leading website in the United Kingdom with more than 4.16 billion monthly visits. The search engine was also popular in its UK top-level domain, with Google.co.uk reaching 267 million views and placing tenth in the ranking. YouTube and Facebook were the most visited social media platforms, ranking as the second and fifth most visited websites in the country.

These are the key Twitter user statistics that you need to know.

According to a survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 2023, Facebook was the most popular social media platform for consuming local news for ** percent of respondents. Twitter outranked Facebook as the top used social media platform when it came to breaking news and UK news, with a share of ** percent and ** percent respectively. However, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat were the most used platforms for celebrity news.

*********************** and *********************************************** are the top two answers among UK consumers in our survey on the subject of "Most common social media activities".The survey was conducted online among 26,710 respondents in the UK, in 2025.

During a 2022 survey carried out in the United Kingdom, roughly ************ fashion and lifestyle buyers said they preferred engaging on Instagram. Almost ** percent of respondents preferred Facebook whereas among another **** percent, Youtube was the most popular platform.

During a 2022 survey carried out in the United Kingdom, Instagram and Facebook emerged neck-to-neck as the most popular social media platforms that the responding B2C marketers use for marketing with a share of mentions of ***** percent and ***** percent, respectively. At a share of **** percent, YouTube came in third position among the respondents.

As of early 2025, advertising on YouTube had the highest reach in the United Kingdom among the presented social media platforms, at ** percent. LinkedIn and Facebook followed, with about ** and ** percent, respectively. An ad medium attractive for marketers… The UK is the third-largest social media market worldwide, behind the United States and China. The market was worth *** billion U.S. dollars in 2023 and was expected to grow to **** billion by 2028. In the same period, social media usage is also forecast to increase. Its penetration rate is projected to deepen from an already high ** percent to **** percent of internet users. …but not so trusted by consumers Popular as it is, social media advertising was the second-least trusted medium among adults in the UK in 2023. Only influencer ads scored lower. This holds true across all age groups, underscoring the fact that even though social media is especially popular among younger internet users, they do not necessarily trust everything they see there. In the age group of 18 to 34, cinema is the most trusted ad medium; among older adults, TV reigns supreme.

According to a 2023 study, ** percent of kids in the United Kingdom used ******, making the*******************g platform the most popular social media among users aged between four and 18 years. ***************************** followed with a reach of ** percent, while ******** ranked third with a ** percent audience reach. Mobile use and kids on apps Coming in all price ranges, mobile phones have become a common entry point for children to access the wonders of the internet. Despite their ubiquitous usage, many Brits still have doubts about kids using them: as of January 2023, only ** percent of respondents considered it appropriate to give primary school children smartphones. In 2023, half of UK children between 8 and 11 years of age were reported to have a smartphone, while among kids aged between 5 and 7, ** percent were reported to own smartphones. Tablets were still the most used device among the youngest users, with almost ***** to ** UK kids aged between 3 and 4 using them to watch videos; **** in ** users aged between 8 and 11 reported watching videos on mobiles. A childproof digital environment In 2021, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK's data protection regulation body, approved the Age-Appropriate Design Code. The code covers the design of features and functionalities for global apps, games, connected devices, and news sources to adopt an age-appropriate design. Additionally, apps might be required to get parental permission before collecting personally identifiable information about children. According to a study of 400 apps hosted on the Google Play Store, only 5 percent required parental permission when collecting data. In April 2023, TikTok was fined **** million euros (or **** million pounds) by the ICO for failing to get parental approval for accounts of kids aged under 13 years.