The beauty and hair services sector contributed £8.541bn to the UK economy in 2023, an increase from £5.1bn in 2022.
These figures come from the Value of Beauty Report, created by Oxford Economics for the British Beauty Council (BBCo).
Beauty and hair services’ contribution makes up 31% of the wider personal care industry’s total GDP contribution.
The report also revealed that the beauty and hair services sector supports direct employment of 224,000 people.
How much is the beauty industry worth?
Last year, sales reached £27.2bn for both products and services – close to the pre-covid average of £28bn.
This figure takes into account not just treatment providers but also retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers.
The British beauty industry as a whole has grown an impressive 11% from last year, when services and products combined were worth £24.5bn.
Combined with the labour taxes paid by the industry (with taxes collected via indirect and induced channels), its contribution is large enough to fund 86% of the annual total expenditure of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
Overall growth this year was boosted by inflation, and even though it is expected to slow next year, Oxford Economics still predicts growth of three percent in 2025 – far higher than the 1% average for the economy.
The growth puts the personal care industry ahead of publishing, chemical manufacturing, and the creative arts and entertainment industries.
How many people work in the beauty industry?
The beauty industry supports a workforce of more than 603,000 people, an increase of 10% from last year.
Beauty and hair services provides, both freelance and salon-based, make up 224,000 of this figure.
Millie Kendall OBE, chief executive of BBCo, praised the findings as a tribute to the hard work, dynamism and versatile nature of the industry and its workers.
She called on the government to ease access to the EU which, post-Brexit, had put almost a £1bn (£850m) drop in exports.
“We have almost returned to our 2019 peak economically, despite structural and economic challenges,” she said.
“We’ve had to be dynamic and pivot – looking to China, the US, Australia, the Middle East and India to help grow our exports in the face of increased red tape when trading with the EU."
However, she pointed out that the beauty industry still managed more growth than our EU neighbours.
"The adaptable and agile nature of the British beauty industry enabled us to surpass the biggest four members of the EU in growth across prestige beauty and skincare in the first half of 2024,” she commented.
“Couple this with our tremendous domestic growth and we have a lot to be optimistic about.”
You can download the full report here.
