UK creator revenue to surpass £1bn for the first time, data shows
The research comes as 93% of UK brands and agencies expect to increase their influencer marketing spending over the next 12 months.
· Marketing WeekBy Amrit Virdi 15 Sep 2026 1:51 pm
UK creator revenue is set to exceed the £1bn mark for the first time, rising 26% to £1.217bn in 2026 – building on growth of 20% in 2025, new research reveals.
Today (15 September) IAB UK has published the first-ever study measuring the UK creator partnerships market with the Institute for Advertising and Media Statistics (IRM), which finds creator partnerships are one of the fastest-growing areas of UK digital advertising.
In 2025, creator partnership revenues reached £966m, up 20.1% from £804m in 2024. This growth was more than twice the 9.6% growth recorded for digital advertising investment excluding creator partnerships, making influencer marketing one the fastest-growing areas of the market.
Creator partnerships were also estimated to add £966m to the UK digital advertising market in 2025, equivalent to around 2.4% of the official £40.5bn ad spend figure.
The research doesn’t include paid amplification of creator partnership campaigns, however respondents interviewed for the study indicated that amplification spend could potentially amount to two to three times creator partnership revenues.
Why marketers are making influencers their ‘main brand building channel’
Commenting on the findings, Connie Hawker, TV+ and creator lead at IAB UK, says creators are “an increasingly important part of the advertising ecosystem” and this study offers a “clear picture of the size of the UK market”.
Head of cultural strategy and insight EMEA at We Are Social, Paul Greenwood, claims the research reflects how brands are becoming “more sophisticated” in how they work with creators, with partnerships becoming longer-term as “the industry around them is maturing rapidly”.
“For brands, working with creators is increasingly moving from an experimental or tactical part of the media plan to a core part of how they reach and engage audiences,” he states.
Just this summer, Marketing Week has spoken to the likes of Wild, Cloud Nine and Radisson Hotel Group about why influencer marketing is increasingly a central part of their strategy.
Growing confidence
The research coincides with the publication of data from Kolsquare, which finds 93% of UK brands and agencies expect to increase their influencer marketing spending over the next 12 months, up from 81% last year and 50% in 2024.
Additionally, half of UK brands surveyed say influencer marketing drives up to a quarter (25%) of their marketing-driven revenue, as 38% of UK marketers lean on metrics like ROI to quantify effectiveness compared to 30% Europe-wide.
Half (49%) of UK brands claim clear disclosure of sponsored content is a priority, compared to 41% across Europe.
Kolsquare’s ‘The Future of Influencer Marketing: The 2026/2027 Outlook’, also found UK brands are the most likely in Europe to describe influencer marketing as a core growth driver. Over a third (38%) of UK brands believe it is, compared with a European average of 31%.
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Currently, one in five UK marketers works with 250 – 999 influencers per year and most have between 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Some 30% of UK brands fully outsource influencer marketing, compared with 23% across Europe, with AI and/or automation used by 90% of UK brands and agencies.
Almost a third of UK respondents (31%) expect to increase the number of influencers they work with by at least 50% over the coming year, compared with 22% across Europe, with short-form video seen as the biggest opportunity by 55% of UK respondents.
Both sets of research come off the back of increasing professionalisation of the UK creator economy in 2026. In July, ISBA and the Influencer Marketing Trade Body announced a formal partnership to combine their focus on the creator economy.
In May, IAB UK also launched the UK’s first industry-backed creator qualification, aimed at helping content creators build audience trust by correctly navigating advertising rules, while strengthening brand partnerships. This is backed by ISBA and the Advertising Association, and has been developed as part of the European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA) AdEthics programme.
Marketing Week will continue to explore the creator economy in future articles in our Influencers Explored series.