In the United Kingdom (UK), much like the rest of the world, the reach and engagement of social media continues to rise at a rapid rate.
It’s often rare to find people who don’t have any social media accounts nowadays, as the scope is so varied in what is available and how people can use these different sites.
From YouTube and Facebook to Twitter, Snapchat and LinkedIn, there is a wide range of platforms for people to connect, socialise, create, advertise and be entertained.
The following social media statistics UK reveal the key trends for 2019, with some surprising facts on how people use social media and which platforms are the most popular.
Take a browse through this face sheet to learn some interesting information and to get the most current social media statistics UK for 2019.
Social Media Statistics UK – Top Trends Of 2024
Key Social Media Statistics UK
Below are the current key social media trends for the UK. These summaries the areas in which the rest of the article goes into deeper detail as you’ll see under the various categories like UK social media usage, specific platform statistics and the role of social media in advertising.
- In general, Internet penetration in the UK stands at 95% of the population, which is a high number considering this accounts for all age groups.
- There are almost 3.5 billion global active social media users.
- This means that 45% of the world’s entire population is using social media.
- In the United Kingdom, there are more than 45 million active social media users.
- This rate of 45 million social media users means that approximately 67% of the population of the UK, therefore, is using social media.
- 39 million people in the UK are using their social media on mobile devices.
- The average social media user in the UK will spend close to 1 hour and 50 minutes a day on networks.
User Engagement Social Media Statistics UK
The way in which people in the UK interact with social media is interesting the learn about, as we see how it has changed throughout time, and also in the ways in which people are using their different social media platforms. Read more on this below.
- In just one year, there has been an increase of 280 million people using social media around the world.
- On average, each individual social media user in the UK is engaging with 7.1 social media accounts, including registrations to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and more.
- There was only a 1% growth rate of social media users in the UK from 2018 to 2019, from 66% to 67%.
- Recently, 96% of all social media users in the UK have visited their network/s in the period of one month. This particular point of the social media statistics UK is interesting, however, as it does not mean that those visiting their networks are actually using them.
- The fact is that 77% of all social media users in the UK have actively engaged with social media platforms (posting, commenting, etc.) in the period of one month.
- The 1 hour and 50 minutes average time frame of people using social media in the UK per day in 2019 is lower than in 2018, where it was 1 hour and 54 minutes on average.
- This is still quite low, compared with the global average of 2 hours and 16 minutes, and not to mention the leading region of the world is the Philippines, at 4 hours and 12 minutes each day spent using social media.
- It’s said that using social media for work purposes is a much lower figure, with the rate only being 14% of UK users interacting with social media platforms for professional reasons.
The most popular social media platforms in the UK are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn, though it may shift month to month in terms of different levels of engagement and activity on the sites. Below we break down these different platforms and reveal some key current social media statistics UK for each of the platforms.
Facebook Social Media Statistics UK
Following the global trend, Facebook is the dominant social media platform across all social media sites in the UK. Read more below for some interesting Facebook social media statistics UK that reveal just how many people are actively engaging with Facebook, and the demographics of those engaging the most.
- Globally, Facebook dominates the social media realm in the usage, engagement and worldwide audience reach. The revenue generated from Facebook is almost all from advertisements.
- Globally, 96% of active Facebook users are accessing the platform through a mobile device.
- 78% of all UK Internet users across all ages are using Facebook.
- Facebook Audience Insights reveals that 52% of UK users are female, and 48% are men.
- These insights also reveal the interesting statistic of the average UK social media user making 6 comments, liking 11 posts, sharing 1 post and clicking on 13 ads in the time span of 30-days.
- The average rate of engagement for the Facebook post in the UK is 3.83%.
- For a photo post, the average engagement rate is 5.48% and a video post is 6.96%.
- The highest number of Facebook users is in the demographic range of 20-29 year old people in the UK.
- The highest amount of traffic on Facebook in the UK occurs between the times 1pm and 3pm. This does not account for the rate of engagement, however, as there is more engagement on the Facebook platform between the hours of 7 and 8pm.
- The total number of Facebook users in the UK is forecast to rise to 41.37 million users by 2021.
Instagram Social Media Statistics UK
Instagram is similar to Facebook (and owned by Facebook, as a matter of fact) in its wide reach in the UK. Read more about the demographic of people in the United Kingdom who are actively using Instagram.
- Instagram users in the UK were estimated to be 24 million at the beginning of 2019.
- This means that 42% of the UK population is currently using Instagram.
- Of the UK Instagram users, 54% are female and 46% are male.
- The highest usage demographic of Instagram in the UK is the 15-34 age range.
- Instagram Insights state that 80% of their users are following various businesses and brands, making the scope for marketing on this platform wide and advantageous for businesses and brands.
YouTube Social Media Statistics UK
As the current second most popular social media platform in the UK, the video sharing platform YouTube has some interesting social media statistics UK to learn about. As a side note you may not be aware of, YouTube is actually owned by Google and was acquired quite early on in YouTube’s history.
- There are almost as many users on YouTube as Facebook in the UK. Both sites have the highest amount of engagement for UK social media.
- 37.1 million adults in the UK are using YouTube (close to the Facebook user number of 40 million).
- The average viewing session globally is 40 minutes.
- YouTube users are watching up to 1 billion hours of YouTube video content each day.
- YouTube users generally search on the platform with an intention to view a certain topic, whereas, on Facebook, users are often scrolling through to consume what they see, without searching actively for anything of particular interest.
LinkedIn Social Media Statistics UK
This communication and social networking site is a favorite among professionals looking to present themselves online for business reasons and prospective work opportunities. Read more below about how the UK is interacting with LinkedIn.
- Globally, LinkedIn has more than 610 million professionals using the platform for communication, idea sharing and networking.
- Though there are so many people using LinkedIn, the rate of active users is low. This means that there are profiles, but the login rate on the profile is substantially lower than the number of registered users. It’s been reported that only 10-25% of registered users of the platform actually log in during any given month.
- In the UK, there are more than 27 million LinkedIn profiles.
- LinkedIn still only has a small UK social media platform usage market share of 0.75% as of February 2019.
- LinkedIn users are made up of around 60% make and 40% female.
- It’s said that 51% of UK adults using LinkedIn are reachable by the advertisements used on the platform.
Other Social Media Statistics UK (Pinterest, Tumblr, and more)
Below are some more social media stats for other platforms which still have a substantial user base.
- Tumblr has a UK social media platform usage market share of 1.94% as of February 2019.
- Pinterest has 250 million monthly active users globally, which was a high increased since 2018 of 50 million users.
- Pinterest holds 16.29% of social media market share in the UK as of April 2019.
- Of the UK users, Pinterest is used much more by females (45%) than males (27%).
- Google+ has been reported to be shutting down globally (FACTCHECK)
- In the UK, 13.6 million people are using Twitter.
- Twitter has a UK social media platform usage market share of 12% as of April 2019.
- The mobile video app named TikTok launched in 2016 in China has been spreading globally, specifically entering the UK social media market.
- With 500 million active monthly users globally, TikTok is growing in its reach.
- For the Christmas and New Year holiday period of late 2018, TikTok created a large community user campaign for the UK market, with virtual challenges and hashtags, as well as having pop up events in London. No doubt we will see TikTok get more popular in the modern UK social media market moving forward.
To get up and running with your own social media platform, you can see my guides on the best UK web hosting picks and also my guide on the top WordPress web hosts.
Social Media and Advertising UK
As online consumerism is on the rise, social media platforms are taking this to their advantage by using their business model of advertisement funded revenue, since there is such large scope now for online marketing.
Below are recent facts and statistics about social media advertisement for products, services and brands in the UK social media market.
- 81% of UK Internet users have bought a service or product online, and 45% of Internet users report feeling comfortable using their mobile devices to make purchases online.
- The top spending sectors of the Internet for UK users are travel, fashion and beauty, and electronics and media. Brands and businesses are creating their own pages and handles on social media across these leading industries to target social media users.
- For social media networks like Facebook, investments into gamification features on things like live video content allow people to add polls and questions to videos, allowing for more engagement and scope for creators and consumers.
- Live videos are becoming more popular in social media, especially on sites like Instagram and Facebook, where people can watch live videos from individuals or brands, again taking advantage of the strong engagement rate, as well as the possibilities for advertising.
- Of people aged 13 years and up, 40 million people are using social media platforms in a way in which they will come across advertisements.
- With over 60 million businesses pages globally on Facebook, many products and services are using this social media platform as one of their main forms of advertising to consumers. This is expected to continue to rise as time passes.
References
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/553538/predicted-number-of-facebook-users-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-based-on-number-of-facebook-users/
- https://www.statista.com/topics/3236/social-media-usage-in-the-uk/
- https://www.avocadosocial.com/latest-social-media-statistics-and-demographics-for-the-uk-in-2019/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/280295/market-share-held-by-the-leading-social-networks-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
- https://www.statista.com/topics/3236/social-media-usage-in-the-uk/
- http://www.rosemcgrory.co.uk/2019/01/07/uk-social-media-user-statistics-for-2019/
- http://gs.statcounter.com/social-media-stats/all/united-kingdom/#monthly-201901-201906
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/280318/social-networks-market-share-held-by-linkedin-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/280449/social-networks-market-share-held-by-nowpublic-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/280304/twitters-market-share-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
- https://wearesocial.com/uk/blog/2019/03/digital-in-the-uk-data-and-learnings-for-2019
- https://www.meltwater.com/uk/blog/social-media-2019/
- https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/
- https://social-media.co.uk/list-popular-social-networking-websites