As of the third quarter of 2023, WhatsApp was the most active social network among internet users in the United Kingdom (UK), with 79 percent of internet users reporting use of the service. Facebook was very close behind, with a rate of 73 percent, followed by Facebook Messenger with 60.1 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  Despite an increase in recent months, Facebook still 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 survey conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020, it was reported that Facebook was the most frequently used social networking platform among all age groups. Compared to Facebook, all other social networking sites and apps had only a fraction of respondents name them as their main account.

Facebook in the UK

Facebook user penetration rate has been gradually increasing, reaching over 63 percent in 2020, with the number of Facebook users also seeing subsequent growth over that period. By 2025, the number of Facebook users in the UK is projected to reach 44.2 million individuals. On the other hand, the market share of the social media giant has experienced a significant decrease since January 2017, reaching its lowest point in April 2020.

Facebook user demographics in the UK

Individuals aged between 25 and 34 years old make up the largest share of Facebook users, followed by individuals aged 35 to 44 years old. And as of October 2020, Facebook attracted more female users than male users in the UK. In terms of household income, users are fairly evenly distributed.

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.

In 2020, it was found that the main social networking profile of UK social media users was Facebook with 57 percent of responding individuals claiming it as their most used social networking profile. During the same survey period, 14 percent of respondents listed Instagram as their main social media account.

As of 2020, Facebook was the most popular social media site in the UK in terms of the share of users who reported having a profile on that networking platform. Facebook's user share among social network users reached 83 percent in 2020. The share of respondents with an Instagram profile during the same period was 57 percent.

The most-used social media site among teenagers and young adults in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020 was YouTube. A survey carried out by AudienceProject revealed that 82 percent of 15 to 25-year-olds said they used the video-sharing platform, making it more popular than Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

YouTube stars

The leading celebrity YouTube channel in the UK in terms of the number of subscribers is Ed Sheeran. The pop singer had a 42.8 million subscribers as of December 2019. Other popular celebrity channels were One Direction and Adele, although Ed Sheeran had more subscribers than both of these combined.

Social media and generational differences

Comparing the social media sites most used by other age groups reveals some interesting differences. In the 26 to 35 age group, Facebook was the most popular social media platform with 82.5 percent. Of those aged 36 to 45, less than 30 percent used Facebook, and just 13.2 percent used YouTube.

Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently sits at more than three billion monthly active users. Meta Platforms owns four of the biggest social media platforms, all with more than one billion monthly active users each: Facebook (core platform), WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. In the third quarter of 2023, Facebook reported around four billion monthly core Family product users. The United States and China account for the most high-profile social platforms Most top ranked social networks with more than 100 million users originated in the United States, but services like Chinese social networks WeChat, QQ or video sharing app Douyin have also garnered mainstream appeal in their respective regions due to local context and content. Douyin’s popularity has led to the platform releasing an international version of its network: a little app called TikTok. How many people use social media? The leading social networks are usually available in multiple languages and enable users to connect with friends or people across geographical, political, or economic borders. In 2022, Social networking sites are estimated to reach 3.96 billion users and these figures are still expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks increasingly gain traction in previously underserved markets.

This statistic shows the use of social networks among individuals in Great Britain from 2011 to 2020. As social media takes the world by storm, this figure has seen a year-on-year increase and as of 2020 70 percent of all respondents reported they use social networks. This is a stark increase from the 45 percent who claimed they did so in 2011.

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 52.7 million social network users in the UK. The number of social media users in the UK is expected to reach 65 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 51.34 million users in the United Kingdom as of December 2021, a relatively small increase on the previous year of 0.3 million. Two years prior, the number of FB users in the UK was 44.86 million. Throughout 2021, Facebook’s user numbers declined, sinking to 49.35 in September, however, toward the end of the year, audience figures recovered. Furthermore, Facebook Messenger, Facebook’s instant messaging app, had a total of 35.71 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 25.1 percent of all users. Overall, 12.5 percent of audiences this age group were women and 12.7 percent were men. Popular social networks in the United Kingdom In 2021, social media app Instagram had a total of 28 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 57.2 percent of its users being between the ages of 25 and 34 years.

In 2022, YouTube was the most used social platform among children and teenagers in the United Kingdom, with 88 percent of respondents stating that they had used the service. WhatsApp ranked second, with 55 percent of kids and teens in the UK being active on the platform. Additionally, usage of TikTok and Snapchat increased from 2021 to 2021 among those aged three to 17 in the UK.

Youth accounts on the rise again From 80 percent in 2012, the share of children aged 12 to 15 years of age with a social media account fell to 70 percent in 2018, but increased again in 2020, peaking at 87 percent. Despite some major social networks setting minimum age limits in their terms of service, 30 percent of children aged 5 to 7 years had a social media account in 2020, according to Ofcom.

Facebook falling out of favor with teens Among teens and young adults in the United States, Youtuba and Instagram had a higher reach than any other social network, slightly ahead of Facebook and Snapchat. When you remove young adults from the picture, Snapchat is clearly the most important social network and Facebook barely comes into the equation. Since the Fall/Autumn period of 2017, less than ten percent of teens in the United States said Facebook was their most important social network, compared with more than 34 percent of teens who nominated Snapchat. The new hot trend among Gen Z is TikTok, selected by 29 percent of respondents and ranking second.

Based on a survey conducted in 2020, the following statistic depicts the creation of social networking profiles among internet users in the United Kingdom (UK), by age group. It was found that 88 percent of respondents aged 16 to 24 years reported having a profile on social media sites or apps, accounting for the largest demographic across all surveyed age groups.

Decline of Facebook as a platform
While most of the main social networking sites have been growing in popularity, the use of Facebook has been in decline. Launched in 2004, the social media site was used often by 86 percent of UK respondents in 2013. This had fallen to 57 percent by 2020, relative to the growing use of WhatsApp and to a lesser extent Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, all of which offer a tailored social media experience compared to Facebook’s multi-function approach. This however, does not undermine Facebook’s dominance as the number of its product users worldwide (including that of Instagram and WhatsApp) has been growing steadily, reaching nearly 3.45 billion by the first quarter of 2021.

The rise of alternative messenger apps As consumer concern over data sharing and privacy continues to rise, an increasing number of social messenger users are leaving Facebook-owned WhatsApp for alternatives such as Telegram, Signal, and Threema. WeChat, the most popular alternative to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger had 1,2 billion monthly active users as of April 2021 and was the fifth most popular messaging app globally.

As of June 2023, 28 percent of social media users in the United Kingdom (UK) were aged between 30 and 39 years old. Overall, 22 percent of social networks user in the UK belonged to the 18 to 29 year age group.

Ipsos data on the share of Facebook use among certain age groups in the UK shows that the group between 25 and 34 years of age has the largest share of use and the group between 45 and 54 has the smallest share. All above 55 years of age were in grouped together distorting the data by bringing too many respondents together. Nonetheless the trend is clear: use among the young but not among the youngest is most common and decreases with the age of the respondents group. When compared to the number of Facebook users per age group in the United States as well as to numbers from the Netherlands similar observations can be made.

Facebook is the leading social network worldwide and holds the highest market share of social networks in the UK.

Further information about social media usage in the UK and Facebook can be found in the Dossier: Facebook in the United Kingdom.

TikTok ranked as the leading social media platform driving beauty shoppers to retailer sites in the United Kingdom in 2024. Based on purchase intent clicks, TikTok accounted for a share of 80.7 percent, outranking Instagram, which had a share of 9.4 percent.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, TikTok was the most popular social media platform for Gen Z consumers to buy products from in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to be the preferred choice for older generations. Additionally, millennials displayed an equal preference for TikTok and Instagram, with 45 percent of respondents stating that they had shopped through each platform.

According to a survey of internet users conducted in June 2023 in the United Kingdom, 80 percent of men reported using YouTube at least monthly, while 70 percent of women reported similar consumption trends. Among women, Facebook was the most used social media platform to consume video content - as approximately 74 percent of women in the UK reported engaging with the platform monthly.

This statistic shows how travelers in the United Kingdom (UK) used social networking sites while on holiday in 2016 and 2016. Over both years around two thirds of respondents used social networking sites on holiday to find our what other people were up to.

According to a survey conducted by Ofcom in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020, 16 to 24-year-olds made up the largest group of respondents who had used social media sites or apps in the previous week. This was followed by 25 to 34-year-olds, comprising the second largest group. Overall, social media use was the highest among young adults, decreasing steadily within the older age groups.

Women and social media

In the United Kingdom, more women than men had set up their own social network profile according to an ongoing survey conducted from 2010 to 2019. By 2019, 86 percent of women and 78 percent of men had created social media profiles, a rise from 2010 where only 56 and 51 percent respectively claimed to have done the same. Despite social media having a comparatively larger female user base as demonstrated by the previous figures, the share of advertising audience in early 2020 was nearly evenly distributed between males and females, particularly in the largest audience group of 18 to 44-year-olds.

The growth of influencer marketing

Social media advertising spend has been on the rise in the UK, reaching over three billion British pounds by 2018. This was a near 30 percent increase from the previous year. The sector also experienced a 40 percent increase in spend per year between 2015 and 2017, further demonstrating the growth of this marketing niche. With the rise of YouTube and Instagram, influencer marketing has come to play a crucial role in social media advertising with 68 percent of PR professionals having allocated between 10 thousand and over 100 thousand British pounds for the sector in 2018. In collaborating with influencers who have an established follower-base, marketers are able to quickly build trust, increase reach, and engage audiences effectively.

71 percent of UK respondents answer our survey on "Most used social media platforms by type" with "Instant messengers (e.g., WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat)". The survey was conducted in 2023, among 24,187 consumers.Find this and more survey data on most used social media platforms by type in our Consumer Insights tool. Filter by countless demographics, drill down to your own, hand-tailored target audience, and compare results across countries worldwide.

91 percent of adults in the United Kingdom (UK) between the ages of 35 to 44 had their own social network profile as of 2020, according to Ofcom. While those aged between 65 and 74 years or older are the least likely to have their own profile, the share of people in that age group on social media increased from 35 percent in 2015, to 59 percent in 2020.

Is Facebook losing younger users?

Just as the monthly number of Facebook visitors aged 55 years or older grew by 2.4 million from March 2016 to 2018, there were 400,000 fewer visitors aged from 18 to 34 years old. Instagram attracted approximately 1.7 million additional users in the same age range, while Snapchat attracted an additional 5.4 million visitors aged 18 to 24.

Age and gender profile of Facebook users

As of 2021, the number of female Facebook users in the UK is higher than the number of male Facebook users across all age ranges. Those aged 25 to 34 years make up the largest group, at over 12 percent.

This statistic displays the share of respondents that reported visiting social networking sites in Great Britain (GB) from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the first quarter of 2019, by device. During the first quarter of 2019, 45 percent of responding individuals reported accessing social networking platforms via smartphones.