TikTok's Impact in UK
Methodology

We derive TikTok’s revenue from its filed turnover at Companies House, adjusting for the advertising share of turnover from its last disclosed revenue breakdown, and allocate this to the UK based on the UK's share of the digital advertising market across the entity's covered regions using IAB and eMarketer market-size data. We validate this against two independent methods: first, applying an estimate of TikTok's share of total social media ad spend in the UK; and second, benchmarking UK per-user ad revenue (ARPU) against observed US and global levels and applying it to the UK user base.

We apply a Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) multiplier sourced from NielsenIQ to estimate the total business revenue generated from advertising on TikTok. We convert this business revenue into direct GVA using a revenue-to-GVA ratio weighted across advertiser-facing industries, and capture spillover (indirect and induced) effects using Type I and Type II GVA multipliers derived from the ONS input-output and supply-use tables, with the advertiser basket weighted by Eurostat data on social media marketing adoption by industry.

We then estimate the equivalent jobs supported using productivity denominators: direct jobs apply ONS output per job for advertiser-facing industries, weighted by each industry's ad-usage-adjusted turnover using Eurostat data, while indirect and induced jobs apply an economy-wide output-per-job denominator.

We use Public First business survey data to estimate the share of TikTok-attributed business revenue that is attributable to firms that agreed TikTok helped them sell abroad. We apply an adjustment for the share of revenue at these firms that is exports, using ONS business turnover and trade in goods data.

We use Public First business survey data to estimate the share of TikTok-attributed revenue accruing to small and medium enterprises in the UK, split by size of SME. To adjust for SME revenue being lower than larger firms, we use ONS turnover statistics by industry and business size, weighting using Eurostat sourced social media advertising adoption by industry. We convert SME business revenue into direct GVA using economy-wide revenue-to-GVA ratios, applying Type I estimate indirect GVA effects. Multipliers are drawn from ONS supply-use tables, also using Eurostat sourced social media advertising adoption by industry.

TikTok drives a measurable share of book buying decisions through influencer content and discovery channels. This is proxied using Nielsen / Circana Bookscan data on US print copy volumes tied to TikTok content, cross-validated against Public First’s survey evidence showing a consistent proportion of readers citing TikTok as their primary discovery source. We take the total market size using NielsenIQ (NIQ) consumer data, and include revenue from digital streams by applying the Publishers Association digital-to-print revenue ratio to the NIQ print revenue estimate. The TikTok share is applied to the total consumer book market in the UK to estimate the value of book spending attributable to TikTok discovery.

Following the methodology of Brynjolfsson et al (2019), we use a “willingness to accept” framing to model the current default hypothetical consumers face. As part of our consumer poll, we asked participants a single discrete binary choice question of “Would you prefer to keep access to [product] or go without access to [product] for one month and get paid [price]” with the price offered randomised between set levels.

We regressed the results of the consumer poll to derive a demand curve and used this to calculate total consumer surplus per user. Finally, we scale by third-party estimates of Internet prevalence, self-reported usage levels from our polling, and World Bank population estimates to calculate the benefits per online adult.

We estimate TikTok's contribution to two creative sectors – production & broadcasting and advertising – in the UK. For each sector, we estimate its total contribution to the economy using ONS data measuring sector level GVA. We then apply proxies for TikTok’s share of each sector's GVA value. For the production & broadcasting sector, we use TikTok's creator revenues as a share of total sector revenues, derived through TikTok's total market revenue from the advertising model above, and apply a creator payout rate benchmarked to industry standards.

For advertising, we use TikTok's share of the video-related digital advertising market using output from the advertising model above and estimates on market size from IAB. We apply the shares calculated to the GVA of each sector. We use IMF data to forecast the base-year direct GVA estimates to 2025.

Using Public First business survey data, we calculate the share of businesses that report employing a staff member whose primary role is managing the company's TikTok account, split by employee size. We then scale by the official count of businesses of each size from ONS statistics to obtain figures for the UK.

We baseline sizes for each revenue stream using IFPI data, cross-checked against national industry benchmarks. TikTok’s incremental impact is then estimated by comparing observed music spending with a counterfactual in which TikTok users spend at the same rate as non-users, using survey evidence from Luminate to increase the spending propensity of TikTok users on music-related purchases. We then use music chart data to estimate the share of total revenue that is attributable to domestic artists.

Using Public First survey data, we derive the share of the population in the UK who report having visited another town or city after seeing it on TikTok. We apply the ratio of net-to-gross conversion rates of tourist visits from literature estimates of the effectiveness of marketing campaigns on tourism activity to estimate the share of reported visits that are truly incremental to TikTok content.

We use survey data from Klarna and research on influencer marketing to estimate the share of UK consumers that made a purchase due to casual creators, proxied by user-generated content. We combine this with ONS population data, average ecommerce transaction estimates, and conservatively assume only one purchase per person impacted. This is scaled by eMarketer’s forecast for eCommerce growth to 2030.

We use Public First survey data to obtain the share of adults in the UK who use TikTok for learning and their typical weekly viewing time. We apply these estimates to the adult population using ONS national statistics.

We use Public First survey data to obtain the share of adults in the UK who have learned a new skill or joined a new club or hobby group as a result of TikTok. We apply these estimates to the official adult population to obtain a weekly total figure.

We use Public First survey data to obtain the share of 18-24 year olds in the UK who cite TikTok as a source for fashion trends. We apply these estimates to official population figures from ONS.

We use Public First survey data on the number of purchases made by adults in the UK that they attribute to TikTok. We apply these estimates to the official adult population to obtain a weekly total figure.

We use Public First survey data to obtain the share of businesses by size that both report being positively featured in a viral TikTok video and that do not pay to advertise on TikTok. The latter restricts the estimate to organic, unpaid word-of-mouth exposure rather than paid promotional activity. We apply the share in each size band by the official count of employer businesses, using ONS business count data. We translate the affected business count in each size band into a workforce-equivalent figure using official average employees per business, split by size, from ONS data.