As of June 2024, the News UK paper with the highest average print readership was The Sun (Mon-Sat), with over 1.9 million people having read or looked at an average issue of the publication. The Times had an average readership of under one million in the same time period.

The national news brand with the highest reported drop circulation in the United Kingdom was Sunday People, with a circulation decrease of around ***percent. The leading national paper by circulation, the Daily Mail, saw a drop of nearly ******percent. Online newspaper readership The newspaper industry is having to make major readjustments to accommodate digital readership. Physical paper sales have been falling as consumers increasingly turn to online news outlets. Data on the monthly reach of national newspapers revealed that smartphones are the most popular platform for newspaper consumption across all major news brands, though free paper Metro had the highest print reach thanks to its regular distribution across London. Journalists Despite the fall in newspaper circulation, the number of journalists in the UK is climbing. In 2020, over *** thousand journalists and newspaper and periodical editors were employed in the United Kingdom, the highest number recorded since 2010.

According to data gathered in the second quarter of 2024, the most popular newspapers in the United Kingdom were The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and The Sun, with 37 percent of respondents reporting that they had a positive opinion of these publications. Ranked second was Metro, followed by Daily Mail.

In July 2021, Mail Online had an average daily audience of *** million people aged 15 years or above, making this newspaper brand the highest ranking in the United Kingdom in terms of daily audience. The Sun and The Guardian ranked second and third respectively.

Free newspaper Metro had the highest reported circulation among daily newspapers in the United Kingdom in December 2023 with *** thousand copies distributed to the public. Ranking second with a paid circulation of *** thousand was the Daily Mail, followed by free paper Evening Standard with a circulation of *** thousand. Due to the Sun, Times and Telegraph titles having kept their circulations private since the beginning of 2020, comparing circulations across major news brands has grown more difficult. The Guardian also chose to keep its circulation figures private and as such is not included in this analysis. Daily papers published on Sundays only can be found here. Newspapers in the UK   Expenditure on newspapers in the UK decreased consistently over the last few decades. In 2005, annual spending on newspapers exceeded *** billion British pounds, whereas by 2020 this figure had fallen considerably to *** billion GBP. Despite this, newspapers remain important to consumers. A survey held in the United Kingdom found that the Daily Express was considered the most important newspaper to readers, whilst titles from the Sun lagged behind in this respect. When it came to popularity and the public's opinion of selected major newspapers, commuter paper Metro was the favorite. Data found that Metro was the most popular newspaper in the UK, followed closely by The Guardian. Metro enjoys a wide readership thanks to its regular distribution in London, and remains free to readers.

The leading newspaper in terms of overall reach in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020 was The Sun. The tabloid newspaper, which has been embroiled in numerous controversies over the years, had a combined reach from its print editions and website of just over 38 million from April 2019 to March 2020.

News online

The newspaper industry has had to make major readjustments to a digitalized future. Physical paper sales have been falling for years with readers being able to gain access to news on a constant and instant level online. Some brands in the UK see over 150 million unique monthly visits online. The mobile phone is now the leading way individuals consume news in the UK for almost every major brand.

The printing industry

Expenditure on newspapers in the UK based on volume has seen a decrease of about three billion British pounds during the last 10 years. Revenues from the printing of newspapers in the UK will fall to a forecasted 16.6 million U.S. dollars in 2024, down from 97 million U.S. Dollars in 2012.

The Times had an average monthly reach of around 15 million adults in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020. The print and digital reach of The Times and The Times on Sunday was higher among women than men, with over 7.7 million women a month reached by The Times or its website on average. Reach was also significantly higher amongst older consumers, with 11.4 million in the over 35 years age group accessing The Times each month.

Print outdoes online

The Times readership demographics reveal that more women read the newspaper than men, and that 4.1 million households with children get the daily paper every month. Of the leading national newspapers in the United Kingdom in 2019, The Times was the only one to have a higher reach in print than any online version.

Times Newspapers

The Sunday Times and The Times are both owned by Times Newspapers Ltd and based in London. The Sunday Times is published once a week and is the second most successful Sunday newspaper in the UK. The Times is published daily from Monday to Saturday.

Readers of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph were more likely to be women, with 12.1 million monthly female readers of The Daily Telegraph from April 2019 to March 2020. Readership of both The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph proved to be more popular among older adults than younger ones. Throughout the period observed, approximately 16 million individuals over 35 years old read The Daily Telegraph.

There was a continuous decrease in annual expenditure on newspapers in the United Kingdom between 2015 and 2022, with spending as low as **** billion GBP in the latter year. This marked the first time the figure fell below ***** billion. Back in 2005, UK households purchased over ** billion British pounds worth of newspapers.

A survey on local news consumption in the United Kingdom found that local weather and local news and current affairs were the main types of local news used by consumers aged 16 years or older, although engagement varied substantially by age. Whilst more than ** percent of adults aged 55 or above read or listened to local news and current affairs, for younger persons aged 16 to 24 years old the share dropped to below ** percent. Younger consumers were overall the least engaged with local news, regardless of type.

According to a survey held in two waves between late 2022 and early 2023, which ranked daily and weekly newspapers by reach in the United Kingdom, The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday had the highest reach at ** percent of all readers. Meanwhile, The Guardian/The Observer ranked second with ** percent of respondents aged 16 or above reading the publication.

The leading national daily newspaper in the United Kingdom by circulation as of April 2023 was DMGT, with an estimated circulation of over 1.86 million. Trailing far behind was Murdoch-owned News UK with a little over 900 thousand, followed by Reach with less than 700 thousand.

The Daily Mail had an average monthly reach of over 36.2 million individuals from April 2019 to March 2020. The daily newspapers’ reach was higher among women than men, with nearly 20 million women reached by the newspaper on an average month during the time period. Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British daily tabloid formatted newspaper founded in 1896. Other editions of the daily paper include its sister paper The Mail on Sunday, as well as the Scottish and Irish Editions. The Daily Mail’s main target audience is lower-middle-class British women. It was the first newspaper in the UK to write articles targeted at women. As of April 2019, the Daily Mail had a circulation of almost 1.2 million newspapers, the second highest in the United Kingdom.

Newspaper consumption in the UK

There has been a decrease in newspaper consumption expenditure in the United Kingdom over recent years. UK households purchased roughly 3.3 million British pounds worth of newspapers in 2018, compared to 4.5 million pounds in 2013. Based on a survey in 2018, 29 percent of adults in Great Britain that regularly access news thought that the quality of the news nowadays is slightly worse than it was five years ago.

This statistic illustrates the proportion of young people reading newspapers the United Kingdom in 2015, by demographic group. Boys were more likely to read newspapers than girls, and among school children aged 16 to 18 years, 46.6 percent reported reading newspapers at least once a month.

A 2023 survey conducted among news consumers aged 16 years old and above in the United Kingdom (UK) noted that Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday papers were the most read print papers, with ** percent of the respondents saying they used print versions of these papers to keep up to date. Free paper Metro ranked second, followed by The Guardian/Observer.

The Daly Mirror reached an average monthly audience of over 32.9 million adults in the United Kingdom during the time period April 2019 to March 2020. The Mirror newspapers in their different formats, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and Sunday People, reached more women than men in the period from April 2019 to March 2020. Reach was also higher among adults aged over 35 years than it was among 15 to 34-year-olds. The Sunday People is a Sunday newspaper that was founded in 1881 and bought by Reach plc in 1961, it now shares a website with other Mirror papers.

Daily Mirror reach

Between July 2018 and June 2019, the Daily Mirror had the third highest reach among men and women in Great Britain in both its print and digital forms. The tabloid newspaper was among the leading newspapers used for news nowadays in the UK .

Household expenditure on newspapers

In 2018, the average weekly household spend on newspapers in the United Kingdom was one pound and thirty pence. This amount varied based on the age group. Older adults, aged 75 years or over, spent three pounds and ten pence a week. Younger adults, under 30 years old, spent an average of 10 pence on newspapers weekly.

In February 2025, the BBC had a total of **** million monthly visits in the United Kingdom, according to the results of data designed to be nationally representative taken from ** thousand people across ** thousand devices measuring website and app usage. Mail Online followed with **** million visits, and then The Sun with **** million. Digital native site Money Saving Expert also made the top 20 ranking with just under ** million visits.

In the first half of 2024, the leading regional daily newspaper in the United Kingdom was Irish News, with a total circulation of nearly 23 thousand. Despite its leading position in the ranking, the newspaper suffered a nine percent drop in circulation compared to the first half of 2023. Liverpool Echo was hit particularly hard with a year-over-year decline of 18 percent. All the top ten daily regional newspapers saw a YOY decrease, and the first six months of 2023 marked the first period in which the majority of leading regionals had a circulation of under ten thousand. Spotlight on Manchester Evening News Manchester Evening News dropped out of the top 10 in the first half of 2023 after Reach chose to end free copies of the publication due to increasing newsprint costs and the paper's significant online audience rendering free print copies unnecessary. Free copies in general saw a drop in terms of circulation type, but digital audience was also down. Whilst Manchester Evening News remains the leading regional news brand by audience, its audience was up by over seven percent year over year. Other papers are also affected, with advertising revenue down and an increasing reliance on social networks and apps for news. The price of news Getting the public to pay for news in a landscape where there is a proliferation of free content is no mean feat. Indeed, the paid circulation of national newspapers in the UK fell for several large publications between 2024 and 2025, the Daily Star, Daily Record, and Daily Mirror all seeing a decline of around 17 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, the cover price of national newspapers, at least in some cases, doubled over the course of a decade. Annual subscriptions to digital news sites are also not always affordable for the average consumer, with some costing around 300 GBP per year.

There is no denying that the way people consume newspapers and magazines has changed. As of 2020, more than two thirds of individuals in Great Britain were either reading or downloading online news, newspapers or magazines. This was more than three times the share of online readers as compared to 2007. The share of UK online readers was higher than the European Union (EU 28) average. As of February 2019, BBC News online had the highest share of readers in the UK, with the Guardian and Mail Online coming in as second and third choice.

How do people like their news?

According to an Ofcom study, both television and the internet were more likely to be a source of news over newspapers across all UK countries. In fact, in Northern Ireland, individuals were more likely to receive news via word of mouth rather than through a physical newspaper or printed magazine.

Social media and news

In some European countries, approximately half of news consumers used Facebook as a source of news, while in the UK, it was approximately one quarter of news consumers. In the UK, Facebook was the leading social media network as a source for news, followed by Twitter and YouTube.

This statistic displays the average issue readership trend of The Sun newspaper in the United Kingdom from 2003 to 2016. In the period from July to December 2015, the Sun's readership was 4.4 million individuals over 15 years in the UK.