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UK Gig Economy
Key Takeaways
- According to UK's Office for National Statistics, in 2019, the market size generated by the gig economy was £20 billion.
- In 2019, 4.7 million British participated in gig jobs, and it is expected to be 7.25 million by 2022.
- The gig economy workforce accounts for 4.4% of the UK's working population and it's expected to reach 75% in the next five years.
- The calculated market size value of the UK's gig economy in 2021 is £27.79 billion with 6.53 million gig workers.
- The calculated CAGR for the next three and five years of the UK's gig economy is 17.88%, reaching an estimated market size value of £45.5 billion and 10.69 million gig workers by 2024, and £63.25 billion and 14.86 million gig workers by 2026.
Introduction
We've calculated the UK's Gig Economy market size in terms of value and gig workers for 2021 and the next three (2024) and five years (2026), and its potential CAGR for that period. Our complete findings, research strategy, and calculations are included below.
Gig Economy Statistics
Market Size and Growth
- According to the latest information provided by the Office for National Statistics of the UK, the market size generated by gig workers in the United Kingdom's economy in terms of value was £20 billion in 2019.
- The same report indicated that, in terms of the number of gig workers, the market size of the UK's gig economy was 4.7 million people in 2019, doubling the number of workers from 2016's 2.4 million. It is expected that, by 2022, 7.25 million people in the UK will work in the gig economy.
- Experts believe that the gig economy of the UK will grow 300% in the next three years.
- Every month, one out of seven adults in the country do a gig job.
- Based on the numbers presented by the Office for National Statistics, 4.4% of the British population is part of the gig economy workforce and in the next five years, the percentage could reach 75%.
- The Global Gig Economy market is worth $347 billion dollars in 2021 and, according to the data presented by MasterCard, it will continue growing at a CAGR of 17.4% until 2023 reaching a market size of $455 billion.
- Approximately 9.6% of gig workers perform a gig job at least once a week.
- For 71.5% of gig workers in the UK, their gig job generates less than 50% of their monthly income; for 28.5%, it represents half of their earnings; for 19.1%, it provides more than half of their earnings; and for only 9.4%, it is all of their monthly income. For this reason, 48% of them have full-time jobs.
- The most common gig jobs in the UK include manual workers doing construction jobs, digital freelancers on online marketplaces, cyclist delivery, and drivers like Lyft and Uber.
- Uber drivers generate a market size of £3.2 billion in the UK, representing 16% of the country's economy, while Capital Economics estimates Deliveroo's UK market size create by gig workers at £1.5 billion.
Demographics
- In 2019, 16.5% of British men and 14.1% of women were involved in the gig economy. 46.5% of gig workers in the UK were women.
- According to the freelancing platform AppJobs, the number of British doing gig jobs in 2020 rose by 88% compared to the previous year and another 23% during the first half of 2021.
- Men earn the most in the gig economy, while women earn 10% less than them, on average.
- 21% of regular gig workers in the UK are located in London.
- By age, British between 16 and 24 years old represent 31.5% of gig workers, those between 25 and 34 years old represent 16.4%, and those between 45 and 54 years old only 13.4%.
Research Strategy
For this research on UK's Gig Economy, we leveraged the most reputable sources of information available in the public domain, including government statistics, market analysis websites, and financial news and media, like the UK's Office for National Statistics, The Guardian, Standout-CV, Statista, MasterCard's report, Business Cloud, Forbes, Financial Times, The Economist, SmallBiz Genius, Open Access Government, and the UK's Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy.
Every source included was considered for its reliable statistics and the information provided by the Standout-CV, The Guardian, and most of these sources originated from the official numbers from the UK's Office for National Statistics, the UK's Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, Center for Economic Performance, and the Centre for Research and Self-Employment, among others. Most of the information came from the Standout-CVanalysis, as it provided the largest compilation of statistics available publicly for the UK's gig economy. We also included additional relevant information to understand the size of the gig economy of the country.
We noticed that the latest gig economy report available was from 2019, and none of the sources included CAGR data. Since we have the UK's market size in terms of gig workers for three years, we used them to calculate an average CAGR with an online CAGR calculator, the current market size for 2021, and the future market size for the next three (2024) and five years (2026). The screenshots of our calculations are included in the attached document.
CAGR and Market Size Calculations:
With the data available of 2.4 million British gig workers in 2016, 4.7 million British gig workers in 2019, 7.25 million British gig workers in 2022, UK's gig economy market size of £20 billion in 2019, and Global CAGR until 2023 17.4%, we found the CAGR using their gig workers market size.
CAGR Average: (20.23% + 15.54%) / 2 = 17.88%
The CAGR found was very close to the Global Gig Economy CAGR of 17.4%, which served us as confirmation.
Then, we used the CAGR found (17.88%) to calculate the current market size for 2021 in terms of gig workers and in terms of value, and for the next three (2024) and five years (2026).
2021's Market Size:
Value: From 2019's £20 billion market size growing at a 17.88% CAGR, 2021's market size is £27,791,388,800 or £27.79 billion.
Gig Workers: From 2019's 4.7 million growing at 17.88% CAGR, 2021's British gig workers are 6,530,976.37 or 6.53 million.
2024's Market Size
Value: From 2019's £20 billion market size growing at a 17.88% CAGR, 2024's market size is £45,522,974,517.05 or £45.5 billion.
Gig Workers: From 2019's 4.7 million growing at 17.88% CAGR, 2024's British gig workers are 10,697,899.01 or 10.69 million.
2026's Market Size
Value: From 2019's £20 billion market size growing at a 17.88% CAGR, 2026's market size is £63,257,334,206.79 or £63.25 billion.
Gig Workers: From 2019's 4.7 million growing at 17.88% CAGR, 2026's British gig workers are 14,865,473.54 or 14.86 million.