UK Digital Ad Spend Rises and WhatsApp Is Nation’s Favourite Platform

UK digital advertising investment is now £38.07bn (US$48.1bn) - up 9.4% year-on-year - and accounts for more than 80% of the country’s total ad spend, according to a new report released today. 

Digital 2025: The United Kingdom, from We Are Social, the socially-led creative agency, and Meltwater, a global leader in media, social and consumer intelligence, is a 166 page report that covers the entire digital ecosystem; from social media to ecommerce, mobile to smart devices, and more. 

The report shows that annual social media advertising spend is now £9.02bn (US$11.4bn), an increase of 13.8% year-on-year (+£1.09bn). Meanwhile, influencer investment has hit £930m (US$1.17bn) - a year-on-year increase of 13.6% (+£111mn).  

There are 67.8 million individuals using the internet and 54.8 million social media user identities in the UK. On average, adult internet users spend 5h 36m browsing online each day, and 1h 37m using social media. WhatsApp is having a strong year in the UK, and tops the charts not only for the country’s most used social platform, but also when it comes to the nation’s ‘favourite’. 

Digital 2025: The United Kingdom also shows that the nation is beginning to embrace AI tools, with ChatGPT coming in at number two on the app download charts between September and November last year, following Threads in first place. However, the AI tool is yet to break into the UK’s top 10 most visited websites - ChatGPT.com is ranked at 13th; while social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, X and Instagram, remain in the top 10. 

Other data points include:  

• There has been a decrease in daily time spent streaming TV content - down by 11.7% to 1h 15m 
• Daily time spent on the internet and social media has fallen year-on-year, by 7.1% to 5h 36m and 11% to 1h 37m respectively.
• Spend on gaming related activities (subscriptions and downloads) was up 11.8% y-o-y to £6.97bn (US$8.8bn) 
• Snapchat is opened more than any other social platform each month by users of its Android app (424 times), followed by WhatsApp (333) and TikTok (286)
• Strong growth in ad reach was reported by TikTok, Facebook, Instagram in the UK, however, X saw a 10.7% ad reach decline year-on-year 
• The UK's most used social platforms are WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and X*
• The country’s favourite social platforms are WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X*
• TikTok’s Android app users spend an average of 42h a month on the platform 
• Topping the charts for average time spent per user on the Android app is TikTok (42h 2m), YouTube (19h) and Facebook (15h 38m) 
• 48.6% of adult internet users use social media to find out info about brands and products 
• While friends and family remain the most followed accounts, 17% of social media users aged 16+ follow influencers, and 16.1% follow brands 

Jim Coleman, UK chief executive, We Are Social, said, “It’s clear from this year’s report that our time is more precious than ever, and people are increasingly discerning about how and where they spend it. While it’s encouraging to see healthy growth in digital, social and influencer ad spend, the underlying message from this data is that marketers can’t afford to cut corners. People who consume any type of media - from TV to online - are looking for quality over quantity. On social, this means that brands need to add value - if they can’t, they will lose ground to others who can.”