The UK's Creator Economy in 2026

Key findings

The British creator market in numbers. Each finding has its own link, so a single statistic can be cited on its own.

1. 48.3% of British Instagram creators have run branded content#

   68,801 accounts, the 2nd highest rate of the 12 markets measured, just behind Sweden. The UK is a thoroughly worked market.

2. 142,382 British Instagram creators above 10K followers#

   Plus 1,438,079 nano accounts between 1,000 and 10,000, 10.1 for every account already above the line. Only the United States has a larger measured Instagram base.

3. Only 41.3% keep 40% of their audience in the UK#

   The market median is 30%. English-language content travels, and British creators are read heavily from the United States, Ireland, Australia and beyond.

4. 58.0% of British Instagram creators are women#

   82,534 accounts against 59,848 run by men, one of the most female-skewed Instagram creator pools we measure.

5. British engagement sits in the bottom half of the study#

   19.9% of British creators clear a 3% engagement rate, against 27.9% in France. The median at 10K to 50K followers is around 0.86%.

6. 48,694 British accounts have not posted in 30 days#

   65.8% of British Instagram creators posted within the last month, which leaves a live pool of 93,688 accounts rather than 142,382.

7. 5.2% average 100K or more Reel views#

   7,373 British accounts, and 576 average a million. The market median is around 5,300 views per Reel.

8. 73,581 British creators have never run a brand deal#

   Even in the 2nd most brand-worked market we measure, 51.7% of the base shows no detected branded content at all.

How many influencers are there in the UK?

The UK study contains separate 10,000-plus cohorts of 142,382 Instagram accounts, 257,935 TikTok accounts and 25,886 YouTube channels. It also counts separate nano tiers of 1,438,079, 2,099,113 and 33,856 accounts respectively.

That places the UK 3rd of the 12 markets measured on Instagram, with the United States first, and ahead of Spain at 108,392 and Germany at 97,105. For a country of 68 million that is a disproportionately large creator base, and it reflects how far English-language content reaches.

The bench underneath is deep: 10.1 nano accounts for every British account already above 10K, a higher ratio than most markets in this study. There is no shortage of creators about to cross the line.

75.7% of British creators sit between 10K and 50K followers, 10.9% between 100K and 500K, and 1,408 accounts have passed a million.

Next, the number that most British media plans get wrong.

Where British creators' audiences are actually located

Only 41.3% of British Instagram creators keep at least 40% of their audience in the United Kingdom, and the market median is 30%.

61.3% clear a 20% domestic threshold and 25.4% clear 60%. The UK ranks 8th of 12 on this measure, a long way behind Turkey at 82.8%.

The cause is language rather than quality. British creators publish in English into the largest single-language feed on the internet, and the audience that finds them is spread across the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the rest of the anglophone world. Those followers are real; they simply are not British.

On 100,000 followers, a British creator at the market median delivers roughly 30,000 people inside the UK.

Location is half the test. Engagement is the other half.

Engagement rate benchmarks for UK influencers

19.9% of British Instagram creators clear a 3% engagement rate, placing the UK 8th of the 12 markets measured.

44.9% exceed 1%, 19.9% exceed 3% and 11.8% exceed 5%. The median at 10K to 50K followers is around 0.86%, falling to around 0.68% at 50K to 250K and around 0.68% above 250K. Across the whole market the median is around 0.79%.

Compare that with France at around 1.3% or Germany at around 1.2% on the same band and the same method. British engagement runs below the European markets in this study and close to the United States at around 0.79%, which is consistent with a creator base whose audience is largely international.

These medians are rounded, so read them as benchmarks rather than exact values.

Engagement measures the audience a creator has. Views measure how far the post travels beyond it.

Views and reach in the British market

33.8% of British Instagram creators average at least 10,000 Reel views. 5.2% average 100,000, and 576 accounts average a million.

The median British creator averages around 5,300 views per Reel, measured across the whole market. The UK ranks 6th of 12 on the six-figure rate.

Read it alongside the domestic share. A British creator averaging 100,000 views at the market median of 30% domestic audience is delivering roughly 30,000 British views, which is the number a UK campaign is actually buying.

A view only counts if the account is still posting.

How many British creators are active, and which are growing

65.8% of British Instagram accounts posted in the last 30 days, leaving 48,694 dormant for a month or more.

That is the 2nd highest activity rate of the 12 markets measured, ahead of Turkey and behind Mexico. In absolute terms the dormant British pool is large enough that an unfiltered shortlist will contain a meaningful share of accounts that have stopped publishing.

Growth is modest. 9.2% of British creators grew their following by at least 20% over six months, placing the UK 9th of 12, 5,919 grew by half or more and 3,039 doubled.

A mature, well-worked market behaves this way: the audience is already distributed and established names hold it.

And the commercial question, where the UK leads almost everyone.

Brand deals and creator quality in the UK

48.3% of British Instagram creators have run branded content, 68,801 accounts, the 2nd highest rate of the 12 markets measured.

Only Sweden is ahead. Against the global Creator Economy Report figure of 28.8% on Instagram, the UK is a market brands have worked hard and for a long time, which shows up as low briefing overhead and high rate cards in roughly equal measure.

The opportunity is what is left. 73,581 British accounts, 51.7% of the base, show no detected branded content at all. Undisclosed and gifted collaborations are not captured by this measurement, so read the brand-deal figure as a floor rather than a census.

Brand experience is not a quality score. It predicts how smoothly a campaign runs, not how well it performs. Audience fit, engagement against the size band and UK audience share still decide the booking.

Every figure above, side by side, in one table.

Who British creators are

58.0% of British Instagram creators above 10,000 followers are women, one of the most female-skewed creator pools in this study.

82,534 accounts are run by women and 59,848 by men. Every Instagram market we measure except Switzerland has a female majority.

Creator gender is inferred from the profile. Accounts with no identifiable individual creator, such as brands, shops and media outlets, are outside the measured population rather than counted separately. This study reports creator gender, not audience gender. Creator demographics should not be used as a substitute for follower demographics.

Numbers mean little until you know whether they are high or low.

Every British creator market metric in one table

Every published figure from the British study, as an account count and a share of the platform base.

Every share uses its own platform base (142,382 Instagram, 257,935 TikTok, 25,886 YouTube).

Next, the United Kingdom against the global market.

The United Kingdom against the global creator economy

We compared these British figures against Click Analytic's Creator Economy Report 2026, a separate study of 23.6M creator accounts globally using a full-year 2025 snapshot. Its published 25-market breakdown covers a subset of that cohort.

The commercial comparison is the striking one. 48.3% of British Instagram creators carry brand-deal history against 28.8% worldwide, which is the largest gap to the global figure of any market in this study apart from Sweden.

Engagement runs close to the global benchmark, with a median of around 0.86% at 10K to 50K followers against a global 0.80%. Activity is ahead, at 65.8% posting in the last month against 55.9% globally.

Here is what that changes about planning a British campaign.

What this means for marketers working in the United Kingdom

Six rules for planning influencer campaigns in the United Kingdom, each grounded in a figure above.

Want to see the creators behind these numbers?

Browse ranked UK influencer lists

Every number on this page comes from live creator profiles. Here they are, ranked and filterable.

Other country studies

The same measurement, repeated market by market.

Methodology

Account totals count profiles matching the stated filters in the Click Analytic creator database. Percentages use the population specified for each metric. Medians are estimated from threshold queries and published as rounded benchmarks.

Population

Creator accounts with 10,000-100,000,000 followers (subscribers on YouTube) located in United Kingdom, with an inferred gender.

Base per platform

142,382 Instagram, 257,935 TikTok, 25,886 YouTube. Every share on this page uses its own platform base.

Nano tier

Accounts with 1,000 to 10,000 followers, counted separately under the same location rules and excluded from every 10K+ total and share: 1,438,079 Instagram, 2,099,113 TikTok, 33,856 YouTube.

Measured

Instagram in September 2026, TikTok in September 2026, YouTube in September 2026.

Counting, not sampling

Account totals count profiles matching the stated filters in the Click Analytic creator database, which indexes over 400 million public profiles. These totals are database counts, not survey estimates.

Accounts, not people

Accounts are counted per platform. A creator active on two platforms appears in both totals, so the cross-platform figure is a count of creator accounts rather than of individuals.

Engagement rate

Calculated per platform. The definitions differ, so a rate is comparable within a platform and not across platforms.

Medians

Each median is published rounded, as a benchmark rather than an exact value.

Notes and limits

• This study covers Instagram, TikTok and YouTube as separate cohorts. Figures in the text refer to Instagram unless another platform is named, and TikTok and YouTube figures use their own platform bases. Cross-platform sums count accounts, not unique people.
• This study covers creator gender, not audience gender. Creator demographics describe the account holders, not the people following them.
• Followers in Ireland, the United States, Australia and Canada count as outside the United Kingdom throughout. For an anglophone rather than British campaign, read the full country split on the shortlist.

Still have questions? Most of them are answered below.

Frequently asked questions