Government · UK · Office for National Statistics
UK Advertising and Market Research Output Up 4.3%
Advertising and market research output rose 4.3% in the second quarter of 2026, making it the fastest-growing part of UK professional services. Consumer-facing services managed just 0.3% over the same three months.
Source published Summarised
Key findings at a glance
- 4.3% Growth in UK advertising and market research output in Q2 2026
- 3.7% Growth in computer programming, consultancy and related activities
- 2.7% Growth in the information and communication sector
- 1.7% Growth in professional, scientific and technical activities overall
- 0.4% UK real GDP growth in Q2 2026, slowing from 0.6% in Q1
- 0.5% Services sector output growth, the main driver of quarterly GDP
- 0.5% Growth in business-facing (non-consumer-facing) services
- 0.3% Growth in consumer-facing services, well behind business-facing
- 0.9% Fall in administrative and support service activities, the biggest drag
- 0.3% Growth in real household final consumption expenditure
- 1.7% Growth in business investment in the latest quarter
- 1.2% UK GDP growth compared with the same quarter a year earlier
What the report covers
The Office for National Statistics published its first quarterly estimate of UK gross domestic product for April to June 2026 on 13 August 2026. Real GDP grew 0.4% over the quarter, slowing from 0.6% in Quarter 1, and sits 1.2% above the same quarter a year earlier. Services did most of the work, rising 0.5%, while construction added 0.3% and production was flat.
The detail underneath that headline is more interesting than the headline itself. The ONS splits services into 14 subsectors, and 8 of them contributed positively. The largest contributors were information and communication (up 2.7%) and professional, scientific and technical activities (up 1.7%). Within that second group, advertising and market research grew 4.3%, ahead of scientific research and development (3.9%) and legal activities (2.5%). Computer programming, consultancy and related activities rose 3.7%.
The split between business-facing and consumer-facing services is the number worth holding onto. Non-consumer-facing services grew 0.5% in the quarter, while consumer-facing services grew 0.3%. Household final consumption expenditure rose 0.3%, with the largest contributions from recreation and culture and from household goods and services. Business investment, meanwhile, rose 1.7%. This release covers the whole UK economy and is the lead measure of GDP, balancing the output, income and expenditure approaches. Earlier quarters in the same series are available through the ONS previous releases archive. Our summary of the Q1 2026 GDP estimate covers the quarter immediately before this one.
What this means for UK marketers
The obvious read is that the UK economy slowed. The more useful read, for anyone selling marketing services, is that demand for those services did not. Advertising and market research was the strongest single component of professional services in the quarter, growing more than ten times faster than the consumer-facing side of the economy. Marketing budgets are not behaving like a discretionary cost being cut in a soft quarter.
That gap between 0.5% business-facing growth and 0.3% consumer-facing growth should shape where you point your effort for the rest of the year. B2B demand is holding up better than consumer demand, and the subsectors driving it are the ones that buy marketing: technology, consultancy, professional services. If you sell into those markets, the case for sustaining spend is stronger now than the GDP headline suggests. If you sell to consumers, the picture is tighter, and household consumption growing at 0.3% means share has to come from competitors rather than from a growing market. We made a similar argument when business closures nearly matched creations in the same quarter.
Two practical consequences. First, if advertising and market research output is up 4.3%, more money is chasing the same auctions. Expect competitive pressure on cost per click rather than relief, and treat efficiency work as the priority rather than assuming a soft economy will hand you cheaper media. Reviewing account structure and wasted spend is usually the fastest lever here, which is the bulk of what our UK PPC management work involves. Second, the strength in computer programming and consultancy at 3.7% points to where the buying is concentrated, so B2B brands in adjacent categories have a live audience worth targeting properly through an integrated digital marketing programme.
Treat this as a first estimate rather than a settled fact. The ONS notes a mean absolute revision of 0.27 percentage points between first and final estimates, so the direction matters more than the decimal. For longer-run context on how productive the UK advertising sector already is, see our earlier report on UK advertising leading creative industry output.
How they got the data
These are accredited official statistics produced by the ONS, covering the whole UK economy for Quarter 2 (April to June) 2026 and published on 13 August 2026. Quarterly GDP is a balanced measure combining the output, income and expenditure approaches to measuring gross domestic product, which gives it higher data content than the monthly output-based estimate. Figures are chained volume measures referenced to 2023 and are seasonally adjusted. International comparisons in the release use OECD data retrieved on 12 August 2026.
Early estimates are provisional. The ONS reports a mean revision of positive 0.08 percentage points and a mean absolute revision of 0.27 percentage points between the first estimate and the final estimate published three years later. There are no revisions to previously published GDP data in this particular release, in line with the National Accounts Revisions Policy. Some components carry more uncertainty than others: quarterly gross operating surplus relies on contextual sources because HMRC gross trading profits data arrives with roughly a two-year lag. Early estimates of private sector wages draw on the Labour Force Survey and PAYE Real Time Information.
Government · UK
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From Office for National Statistics · published 13/08/2026