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. 

In 2024, around ** percent of the population of the United Kingdom was active on social media. By 2028, it is expected that ** percent of the country's population will be using social media services. Social media's global reach As of April 2024, Northern and Western Europe possessed the highest rates of social network penetration globally, with **** and **** percent, respectively. Eastern and Middle Africa had the lowest coverage, with **** and *** percent. The global average was **** percent, which means that almost *** out of ***people around the world are using social networks. Other major platforms Although Meta continues to dominate the social media landscape in the UK, other social media brands are consistently getting more popular, especially with younger users. In 2024, video-sharing social media app TikTok had an awareness of over ** percent in the UK and a usage of over ** percent. Snapchat, owned by Snap Inc., had an awareness of around ** percent.

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, although there is rapid uptake among older age groups. 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 last few years, becoming the most downloaded app between 2020 and 2022, according to Apptopia. The short-form video platform reported that it averaged revenue growth of over 450% between 2019 and 2022. 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 have 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. Revenue is expected to grow by 14.3% in 2024-25, constrained by a slowdown in user growth for most major social media platforms. Over the five years through 2024-25, revenue is forecast to expand at a compound annual rate of 32.8% to reach £9.8 billion. Looking forward, 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 rising prominence of AI will require the introduction of adequate regulations. The Online Safety Bill sets out new guidelines for social media platforms to abide by, with hefty fines in store for those who do not. Operating costs will swell as platforms look to meet consumers’ expectations, weighing on profit. Over the five years through 2029-30, social media platforms' revenue is projected to climb at an estimated 9.4% to reach £15.4 billion.

We asked UK consumers about "Social network usage by brand" and found that "Facebook" takes the top spot, while "Yelp" is at the other end of the ranking.These results are based on a representative online survey conducted in 2025 among ****** consumers in the UK.

Market Size statistics on the Social Media Platforms industry in United Kingdom

Employment statistics on the Social Media Platforms industry in United Kingdom

The use of social media platforms continues to increase in the United Kingdom (UK) and is predicted to do so for the foreseeable future. As of 2024, there are a total of **** million social network users in the UK. The number of social media users in the UK is expected to reach ** million by 2027. Facebook users in the United Kingdom Social media network Facebook, which recently rebranded as Meta in a move towards the metaverse, had ***** million users in the United Kingdom as of December 2021, a relatively small increase on the previous year of *** million. Two years prior, the number of FB users in the UK was ***** million. Throughout 2021, Facebook’s user numbers declined, sinking to ***** in September, however, toward the end of the year, audience figures recovered. Furthermore, Facebook Messenger, Facebook’s instant messaging app, had a total of ***** million UK users at the end of 2021. The majority of UK Facebook users at the end of last year belonged to the 25 to 34 year age group which made up **** percent of all users. Overall, **** percent of audiences this age group were women and **** percent were men. Popular social networks in the United Kingdom In 2021, social media app Instagram had a total of ** million UK users. Instagram was most popular amongst 25 to 34 year olds, accounting for approximately a third of users. In addition, professional online networking platform LinkedIn also finds popularity amongst this demographic, with **** percent of its users being between the ages of 25 and 34 years.

Forecast: Individuals Participating in Online Social Networks in the UK 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

This dataset contains ~11M tweets related to the 2019 United Kingdom General Election, published and collected between November 12, 2019, and December 12, 2019. In addition, we provide nodes and edges of the superspreader user similarity network, as described in the paper below.

Please, refer to the paper below for more details.

Nizzoli, L., Tardelli, S., Avvenuti, M., Cresci, S., & Tesconi, M. (2021). Coordinated Behavior on Social Media in 2019 UK General Election. In 15th International Conference on Web and Social Media. AAAI.

In detail, the dataset consists of:

• tweet-ids.csv.zip: a CSV file with the column "tweet_id," containing 11,264,820 tweet IDs related to the 2019 United Kingdom General Election, published and collected between November 12, 2019, and December 12, 2019.
• superspreader-nodes.csv.zip: a CSV file with the columns "id" and "cluster," relating to the nodes of the superspreader user similarity network mentioned in the paper.
• superspreader-edges.csv.zip: a CSV file with the columns "source," "target," and "weight," relating to the edges of the superspreader user similarity network mentioned in the paper.

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.

Social Networks in Georgian Britain (SNiGB) originated in 2008 when it began as the prosopography for Lord Byron and his Times (LBT), an archive of printed letters and diaries by and about Byron’s associates encoded in TEI-XML and rendered as the website LordByron.org using XSLT transformations and XPath queries. These records, used to generate footnotes, included links to name authority files such as the Library of Congress, National Archive (UK), National Portrait Gallery (UK), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), and the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF). In 2014, the LBT prosopography became an XML relational database with the addition of a demographic file containing fields for place of origin and professions, with linked information about family members, educational institutions, and correspondents. Fields were hand-coded using TEI elements and included place of origin, professions, and correspondents.From 2008 to 2012, the LBT website was hosted by Performant Software in Charlottesville, and sponsored by NINES; in 2012 web hosting was transferred to Virginia Tech University Libraries (VTUL). Dr. Radcliffe has since added an additional 10,000+ names to the original project. This final version of SNiGB content comprising over 37,000 names has been exported into individual XML files by person and organization for the purposes of access, text mining, and reuse.

United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: 1000+ Employees data was reported at 90.300 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 85.200 % for 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: 1000+ Employees data is updated yearly, averaging 82.200 % from Dec 2012 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 90.300 % in 2016 and a record low of 77.300 % in 2013. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: 1000+ Employees data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s UK – Table UK.S039: E Commerce: Proportion of Businesses Using Social Media: By Size of Business.

United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks data was reported at 60.300 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 56.500 % for 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks data is updated yearly, averaging 51.200 % from Dec 2012 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 60.300 % in 2016 and a record low of 42.200 % in 2013. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.S040: E Commerce: Proportion of Businesses Using Social Media: By Industry.

United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: 250-999 Employees data was reported at 78.100 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 75.900 % for 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: 250-999 Employees data is updated yearly, averaging 71.700 % from Dec 2012 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 78.100 % in 2016 and a record low of 63.400 % in 2012. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: 250-999 Employees data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.S039: E Commerce: Proportion of Businesses Using Social Media: By Size of Business.

United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Transport & Storage data was reported at 39.200 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 35.400 % for 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Transport & Storage data is updated yearly, averaging 35.400 % from Dec 2012 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 39.200 % in 2016 and a record low of 25.500 % in 2012. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Transport & Storage data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.S040: E Commerce: Proportion of Businesses Using Social Media: By Industry.

Indicators from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) related to people’s social media use and attitudes towards elections in Great Britain.

United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Utilities data was reported at 44.600 % in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 50.000 % for 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Utilities data is updated yearly, averaging 39.400 % from Dec 2012 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 50.000 % in 2015 and a record low of 26.300 % in 2012. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Utilities data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.S040: E Commerce: Proportion of Businesses Using Social Media: By Industry.

United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Construction data was reported at 41.200 % in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 36.100 % for 2015. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Construction data is updated yearly, averaging 27.100 % from Dec 2012 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 41.200 % in 2016 and a record low of 18.600 % in 2012. United Kingdom E Commerce: Social Networks: Construction data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office for National Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.S040: E Commerce: Proportion of Businesses Using Social Media: By Industry.