Beauty’s GDP contribution reached £30.4bn in 2024, a 9% increase year on year (5% adjusting for inflation). This makes up 1.1% of the country’s entire GDP.
This growth is four times faster than the growth rate of the overall economy. Which was 1.1% compared to beauty’s 5%, after adjusting for inflation.
In 2024, consumer spending in the personal care industry increased by 8% in cash terms year-over-year, reaching £32.4 billion.
Professional services make up £10.1 billion of this total (+15%), whilst personal care goods accounted for £22.3 billion (+5%). This is a significant increase even after adjusting for inflation (+10% for services and +3% for goods).
Vasilis Douzenis, Associate Director of Oxford Economics’ Economic Impact department said: ‘The UK beauty and personal care sector saw stable growth in 2024, supported by strong consumer spending. The sector grew significantly faster than the overall UK economy, and is supporting a growing share of the country’s GDP, jobs, and tax revenue. Beauty now directly contributes a larger share of GDP than the sports, amusement, and recreation sector. It also employs more jobs than the publishing and broadcasting sector.’
Looking forward, it is predicted that the personal care industry will support a total GDP contribution of £31.5bn in 2025, up 3%. This more conservative growth is driven by an expected slowdown in growth of household spending on personal care products and services.
Beauty continues to boast a strong workforce despite slowing growth
The beauty sector directly employed 496,000 workers in 2024, an 11% increase year on year. This figure is higher than the pre-pandemic peak of 478,000 in 2019. It is also a larger workforce than publishing and broadcasting activities, utilities and telecommunications.
The majority of this employment increase (36,000 out of the new 48,000 jobs) is estimated to have taken place in the personal care services sub-sector, which employed 266,000 workers – +16% versus 2023.
In 2024, the total footprint of the industry extended to almost 700,000 jobs. However, in 2025 it is predicted that there will be a downturn in overall jobs by -2% to 681,000.
Beauty’s tax contributions continue to rise in the wake of government measures
In 2024, the personal care industry supported a total of £8.6 billion in tax revenue to the UK Treasury, which is equivalent to 34% of the departmental budget for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
In 2025, it is estimated that the industry will support £9.4 billion in total tax contributions, largely driven by the rise in minimum wage and national insurance contributions.
Beauty industry exports decline with EU continuing to characterise trading
Over the course of 2024, exports by UK beauty and personal care manufacturers totalled £4.3 billion and accounted for 1.3% of total UK goods exports. This is a marked decline since export highs in the 2010s.
Millie Kendall OBE, CEO of the British Beauty Council, said: ‘Beauty’s drop in exports, and top exporting locations, doesn’t come as a surprise given the repercussions of not only Brexit but also the fluctuation in trade red tape globally. With 70% of beauty’s exports going to the EU, it is markedly important that policy-makers mitigate trading challenges to the rest of the World to aid our global growth. That said, there is a clear appetite from brands to focus on their home market, building our reputation in the UK.’
Since the end of 2020, exports of personal care goods to the EU single market have fallen by 5.9% annually and a 4.4% annually to the rest of the world.
The data shows that since the UK left the EU in 2021, declining exports have not been offset by greater trade with partners outside of Europe. The EU continues to have a strong hold over beauty’s trade: whilst only 47% of non-beauty goods are exported from the UK to the EU single market, 70% of beauty and personal care exports were to the continent.
