AA/WARC Updates Advertising Expenditure Report to Capture Evolving UK Media Landscape and Records £46.7bn Media Investment in 2025

Published: 30 Apr 2026

The Advertising Association and WARC worked with industry stakeholders to update channel definitions, simplify public reporting, and include new standalone channels

London, April 30, 2026: The Advertising Association and WARC have today published a refreshed advertising Expenditure Report, following extensive collaboration with industry stakeholders to ensure advertising investment reflects the evolving media landscape.

The latest report – drawn from a survey of media owners and the industry bodies that represent them – reveals that UK advertising investment increased by 6.4% year-on-year in 2025 to reach £46.7 billion, with data showing £12.9bn was committed to media during last year’s Q4 festive season alone.

AA/WARC’s refresh includes updated channel definitions, developed in consultation with stakeholders responsible for each channel, as well as a simplified reporting format. This includes retail media and social media, which are now being presented publicly as standalone channels for the first time. The result is a refined dataset for public use that reflects an even deeper understanding of the dynamic media marketplace in 2026, while subscribers can continue to enjoy further analysis of spend by channel and by category.

The Advertising Association and WARC worked closely with representative industry bodies, including IAB UK, IPA, ISBA, Newsworks, Marketreach, Outsmart, the Cinema Advertising Association, PPA, Radiocentre and Thinkbox to redraw media definitions to reflect current trading practices.

Q4 2025 Performance

The new figures reveal a total investment by advertisers of £12.9 billion in media space during Q4 2025, an increase of 8.0% year-on-year. Within this, retail media (30.5%), addressable TV (26.9%) and social media, including YouTube, (22.0%) all saw strong double-digit growth. Search, now excluding retail media, rose 8.6% during the festive season while out of home (4.5%) and radio (2.1%) both saw overall spend increases.

Full year 2025 and forecasts

Across 2025, advertising investment increased by 6.4% year-on-year to reach £46.7 billion. Double-digit growth was recorded across addressable TV (37.0%), social media (21.0%), retail media (17.5%) and online radio (14.9%) that year. Search (5.8%), cinema (3.4%) and out-of-home (2.3%) also saw an increase in year-on-year growth. Search has continued to account for the biggest share of UK advertising investment at 38.3%, followed by social media (24.7%) and TV (11.2%).

Looking ahead, AA/WARC forecasts predict an increase in advertising investment by 6.6% to £49.8 billion in 2026, and by 5.6% to £52.6 billion in 2027.

This refresh represents phase one of a programme to update AA/WARC’s Expenditure Report in line with the UK’s dynamic advertising and media landscape. A second phase will see a working group of stakeholders convened to address further areas for refinement, including developing a clearer understanding of investment in the influencer / creator channel, how to address investment in the emerging Gen AI / LLM advertising channel, and increased understanding of how investment in media may differ between large brand advertisers and the long tail of SMEs, which together are estimated to comprise 3.5 million UK businesses alone that advertise each year in the UK, as well as many more from overseas.

Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive of the Advertising Association, said:

“I would like to thank all our stakeholders for their feedback, collaboration and active participation in this process. This evolution of the AA/WARC Expenditure Report will ensure the industry has the best possible information to guide understanding of investment across the UK advertising and media landscape, reflecting how dynamic and diverse that landscape has become.”

James McDonald, Director of Data, Intelligence & Forecasting, WARC, said:

“The AA/WARC Expenditure Report has been a staple for practitioners for over four decades, and this latest iteration – developed in close consultation with industry stakeholders – ensures our investment benchmarks will continue to accurately reflect the pace of change in advertising trade for many years to come. The result is greater clarity and transparency around media investment in the UK, to the benefit of both the media industry and the public at large.”

* Excludes display revenues from magazine brands, news brands, radio, retail media, social media and TV. Includes audio, gaming, video outstream, display embedded formats, native advertising and section take-overs.

Notes to editors:

Table: Definitions of the mediums represented

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Advertising Association

Matt Bourn, Director of Communications

Matt.Bourn@adassoc.org.uk

Mariella Brown, Head of Policy Communications

Mariella.Brown@adassoc.org.uk

WARC

Amanda Benfell, Head of PR & Press

amanda.benfell@warc.com

T: +44 (0) 20 7467 8125

About the Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report

The Advertising Association/WARC quarterly Expenditure Report is the definitive guide to advertising expenditure in the UK. Impartial and independent of any media channel or agency affiliation, it is the only source of historical quarterly ad spend data and forecasts for the different media for the coming eight quarters. With data from 1982, this comprehensive and detailed review of advertising spend includes the AA/WARC’s own quarterly survey of all national newspapers, regional newspaper data collated in conjunction with Local Media Works and magazine statistics from WARC’s own panels. Data for other media channels are compiled in conjunction with UK industry trade bodies and organisations, notably the Internet Advertising Bureau, Outsmart, Radiocentre, the Royal Mailand Thinkbox.

All data are net of discounts and include agency commission but exclude production costs. The survey was launched in 1981 and has produced data on a quarterly basis ever since.

Methodology for WARC’s quarterly forecasts

Analysis of annual ad spend data over the past 35 years shows that there is a link between annual changes in GDP and annual changes in ad spend (after allowing for inflation, and excluding recruitment ad spend). Over this period, GDP changes account for about two thirds of the change in ad spend. WARC has developed its own forecasting model to generate forecasts for two years based on assumptions about future economic growth. The model provides an indication of likely overall spend levels – adjusted to allow for short-term factors (Olympics, World Cup etc).

The Expenditure Report (www.warc.com/expenditurereport) launched online in February 2010 and combines data from the discontinued print publications the Quarterly Survey of Advertising Expenditure and the Advertising Forecast. It is relied upon daily by the world’s largest brands, ad agencies, media owners, investment banks and academic institutions. Alongside over 200 readymade tables, subscribers can create their own customised tables for analysis of different media and time periods, as well as track the different media’s share of ad spend. All reports can be exported from the online interface. An annual subscription is priced at £760 for AA members and £1,175 for non-members.

About the Advertising Association
The Advertising Association promotes the role and rights of responsible advertising – trusted, inclusive and sustainable – and its value to people, society, businesses and the economy. Responsible businesses understand that there is little point in an advertisement that people cannot trust. That's why, over 50 years ago, the Advertising Association led UK advertising towards a system of independent self-regulation which has since been adopted around the world. There are nearly thirty UK trade associations representing advertising, media, and marketing. Through the Advertising Association they come together with a single voice when speaking to policy makers and influencers.

About WARC – The global authority on marketing effectiveness
For over 40 years WARC has been powering the marketing segment by providing rigorous and unbiased evidence, expertise and guidance to make marketers more effective. Across four platforms - WARC Strategy, WARC Creative and WARC Media – its services include 100,000+ case studies, best practice guides, research papers, special reports, advertising trend data, news & opinion articles, as well as awards, events and advisory services. WARC operates out of London, New York and Singapore, servicing a community of over 75,000 marketers in more than 1,300 companies across 100+ markets and collaborates with 50+ industry partners.

WARC is part of Informa Festivals, part of Informa PLC.