Measured as a contribution to national output, UK beauty and personal care was worth £28.3 billion in 2025, a total that counts the industry's own activity plus what it supports through its suppliers and through the spending of the people both employ. That estimate comes from The Value of Beauty 2026, prepared by Oxford Economics for the British Beauty Council, and its narrower figure, the industry's own direct contribution to UK GDP in 2025, was £14.4 billion. Wellness is counted on a far wider definition: the Global Wellness Institute puts the whole UK wellness economy at $261 billion in 2024, the fifth largest in the world. The 2026 editions of two fitness reports, LeisureDB's and Grant Thornton's for UK Active, each put UK health club membership at roughly 12 million. Each figure below carries its source, what it counts and, where the source states it, the period it covers.
How the beauty market is counted
The headline beauty figure measures economic contribution, not sales, and it puts very different businesses into one total. The British Beauty Council's Value of Beauty 2026 page describes a sector that "spans hairdressing, beauty, wellness, aesthetics, manufacturing, retail and marketing". On that description, a salon, a clinic, a factory and a shop all sit inside the same £28.3 billion.
The report itself splits the 2025 total into three parts:
Direct contribution. Value: £14.4 billion. What it counts: Value added by the industry itself, a 0.2% cash-terms fall on 2024
Supply chain. Value: £6.1 billion. What it counts: Activity the industry's purchases support in UK suppliers
Wage spending. Value: £7.8 billion. What it counts: Activity supported when the industry's and its suppliers' workers spend their pay
Within the direct figure, the report names beauty services such as hairdressing as the largest sub-sector, at £5.7 billion in 2025. On jobs, it estimates 595,000 supported across all three channels in 2025, of which 422,000 were employed directly by the industry (2.1% fewer than in 2024) and 243,000 of those worked in beauty services.
Growth: flat in 2025, uneven underneath
The most recent full year was close to flat for beauty as a whole. Oxford Economics attributes the 0.4% fall in the total contribution in 2025 to a 0.7% decrease in UK household spending on personal care products and services and to weaker demand abroad, as exports fell in real terms. It forecasts that UK consumer spending on beauty products and services will rise by 3.9% in cash terms in 2026, while warning that the forecast is "subject to some significant downside risks".
The year before looked different at the premium end. In a British Beauty Council article of February 2025, data from the research firm Circana showed UK prestige beauty sales growing 10.7% year on year in 2024 against 5.9% for mass beauty, and Circana's UK account director said prestige value sales "exceeded £4bn for the first time in the UK". These are 2024 retail sales from one tracking firm, a different measure and a different year from the 2025 GDP figure.
Where beauty is bought
In 2024, online carried a larger share of premium beauty sales in the UK than in France, Germany, Italy or Spain, according to Circana. A British Beauty Council article of March 2025, reporting Circana data, says "close to half of all sales of premium beauty were completed online in 2024 in the UK", against 15% in both Italy and Spain. The figure covers premium beauty only, not mass beauty or salon and clinic treatments. For a brand weighing premium retail against its own website, the article does not say how much of that online spend went through retailers' sites and how much through brands' own shops, so compare the margin and cash each route needs before leaning on it for a channel decision.
What UK households spend each week
The Office for National Statistics measures spending from the household side. Its Family spending workbook for the financial year ending 2025 covers April 2024 to March 2025 and is built from a UK survey sample of 5,000 households. Average weekly spending per household, from the workbook's detailed expenditure tables:
Personal care, all of it. Average per household per week: £13.20
Hairdressing and beauty treatment. Average per household per week: £4.40
Cosmetics and related accessories. Average per household per week: £3.40
Sports admissions, subscriptions, leisure classes and equipment hire (ONS category 9.4.1). Average per household per week: £8.80
Hairdressing and beauty treatment, lowest tenth of households by gross income. Average per household per week: £1.90
Hairdressing and beauty treatment, highest tenth of households by gross income. Average per household per week: £11.00
For scale, the ONS bulletin for April 2024 to March 2025 puts total average household spending at £676.60 a week. The workbook shows 880 of the 5,000 sampled households recording any hairdressing or beauty-treatment spending, but the bulletin explains that participants keep a spending record for two weeks, so 880 is not the number that bought a treatment during the year. The £4.40 averages across all households, including those that recorded none. The income split is context for a salon or clinic plan, not evidence of demand for premium treatments; test a proposed price against your own bookings and enquiries.
Wellness and fitness spend
Fitness has two annual counts that disagree. Health Club Management's report of June 2026 sets them side by side:
State of the Industry Report, LeisureDB (now Evolve). UK clubs: 7,463. Reported members: 12.1 million. Money measure: £7.29 billion market value
UK Health and Fitness Market Report, Grant Thornton for UK Active. UK clubs: 5,842. Reported members: 12.2 million. Money measure: £6.5 billion revenue
Health Club Management does not give the measurement dates behind these 2026-edition figures or the periods the money figures cover, so they are not calendar-2026 results. It says Grant Thornton uses live spending data while LeisureDB estimates spending from published membership prices, and puts LeisureDB's market value around £800 million above Grant Thornton's revenue in both the 2025 and 2026 editions. Keep each report's measures together when comparing.
Studios need a separate caution. Health Club Management's report of June 2025 on LeisureDB's 2025 report says its private sector count, 4,727 clubs and a market value of £4.91 billion, "does not count studios or hotel gyms". Of the respondents to LeisureDB's survey for that report, 11% had reformer studios, a share of those who answered, not of the market. What a group of independent reformer studios actually promises its members is covered in a teardown of ten London reformer homepages.
Wellness, as the Global Wellness Institute defines it, is wider again. Its 2026 country rankings list the UK fifth at $261 billion in 2024. Its 2024 report on the UK covers eleven sectors, from physical activity ($50.4 billion in 2022) to public health and prevention, and puts the wellness economy at 7.3% of UK GDP in 2022. These figures are in US dollars and include sectors such as wellness tourism and real estate, so they do not add to, or compare with, the beauty totals above.
Sources and dates
The Value of Beauty 2026, Oxford Economics for the British Beauty Council. Published: 2026. Period covered: Calendar 2025, forecast 2026. What it counts: Contribution to UK GDP, jobs, tax and exports of beauty and personal care
Circana data, as reported by the British Beauty Council. Published: February and March 2025. Period covered: Calendar 2024. What it counts: Tracked UK prestige and mass beauty retail sales
Office for National Statistics, Family spending. Published: June 2026. Period covered: April 2024 to March 2025. What it counts: Household spending from a survey of 5,000 UK households
LeisureDB (Evolve) and Grant Thornton for UK Active, via Health Club Management. Published: 8 June 2026 article on the 2026 editions. Period covered: Not stated. What it counts: UK health club counts, reported members, market value or revenue
LeisureDB, via Health Club Management. Published: 5 June 2025. Period covered: Gym inventory at end-March 2025; monetary reference period and survey fieldwork dates not stated. What it counts: UK private health clubs, market value, reformer studios among survey respondents
Global Wellness Institute. Published: 2024 and 2026 editions. Period covered: 2022 and 2024. What it counts: Wellness economy across eleven sectors, in US dollars
Every figure above was read from the linked page on 28 October 2026. This page is refreshed once a year, when the main reports publish.
What these numbers cannot tell you
They cannot be added together. GDP contribution, retail sales, household spending and club market value or revenue are different measures, and a total built from them would count some of the same money twice and miss other money entirely.
They move when they are revised. The Value of Beauty 2026 restates its 2024 estimates "incorporating the latest ONS data" and says they reflect updates to official household spending data, so a figure quoted from last year's report may no longer match this year's.
This page does not provide standalone UK market estimates for aesthetics clinics, spas, boutique studios or supplement brands. Do not use a broader beauty, wellness or health club total as the size of one of those markets.
Before blaming a clinic's slower sales on the market, separate fewer enquiries, fewer bookings per enquiry, fewer return visits and a lower average payment per visit in its own records. Those records say more about a single business than any sector figure, which is the argument behind treating data as a growth tool.
Questions founders ask about these figures
How can a studio use national figures to plan local research?
Start with the area your customers can realistically travel from. List the studios serving it, then compare their formats, timetables and published prices with your proposed offer. Check your own enquiries for requests you cannot currently accommodate. Keep that local evidence beside the national figure, so the plan shows where its demand assumptions come from.
How should a forecast be shown beside an observed market figure?
Label each as a forecast or an observed estimate, and give the period it describes. Keep that distinction visible in the heading or chart key, rather than only in a source note. If a later report replaces the forecast with an observed estimate, preserve both versions when explaining what changed; a forecast is not evidence that growth happened.
What should a founder do when a new report revises an older figure?
Keep a copy of the earlier source and record which figure changed. Recalculate any comparison that used the old value, and note whether the revision changes the commercial decision or only the background description. Give someone responsibility for updating the figures in active plans, so different versions do not circulate without an explanation.
Reading the market for your own business
To test the market figure behind a retail launch, an extra treatment room or a studio expansion against the plan's sales or booking assumptions, start a conversation. Brand Intelligence weighs which market evidence supports that decision and which assumptions still need testing.
Kirsty Newman is Founder of The Boutique Consultancy. She spent almost two decades at some of the largest corporate powerhouses in beauty and luxury, including YSL Beauty, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Lancôme and Rimmel (L'Oréal Group and Coty). She went on to work with a number of startups as they scaled, before striking out on her own. Across this time, she has run seven-figure P&Ls and teams of 16, with direct engagement in venture capital funding and expansion.
Gaia Gabiati, Consulting Lead at The Boutique Consultancy. A decade across health clubs, private members' clubs, hospitality, wellness and multi-site aesthetics clinics, from Milan through Harvey Nichols, Virgin Active, Third Space and Soho House, to running the operational side of multi-site luxury aesthetics clinics.