UK gaming industry drives a staggering amount of money, new stats reveal

A new report has revealed that, despite a tumultuous state of the wider industry, gaming in the UK is continuing to boom.

It has been a tough few years for the games industry, with rampant layoffs affecting studios from small indie teams right up to AAA powerhouses like EA and Xbox.

But despite these struggles, gaming in the UK is hitting new heights when it comes to spending on games.

Ukie, the UK's trade body for video games and interactive entertainment, today released a new report detailing a significant rise in UK consumer spending.

In 2025, British consumers spent £8.76 billion on games, representing a 7.4 per cent increase on the previous year.

Software purchases make up the vast majority of this spending, with a 7 per cent increase taking it to £6.03b, with hardware spending totalling £2.17b.

This is credited, in-part, to the continued shift from physical to digital gaming, with digital console, PC and mobile spending totalling £5.71b across all platforms.

On the hardware side, the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 console is sure to be a major contributing factor, with the console having sold millions worldwide.

The largest increase year on year was in 'Game Culture' spending, which includes film and TV, toys and merchandising, seeing a 42 per cent increase to £566 million, helped in part by the success of A Minecraft Movie.

On the figures, Ukie CEO Nick Poole said, "Even against a backdrop of rising costs and squeezed household budgets, British consumers spent more on games in 2025 than ever before which is a remarkable vote of confidence in the medium.

"The next 12 months could be genuinely defining for the UK games industry, with studios across every region of the country developing titles that will reach millions of players."

While Poole is undoubtedly correct about 2026 being a potentially monumental year for gaming, it would be naïve not to think that one game will be responsible for the vast majority of that.

Edinburgh-based Rockstar North is currently hard at work on Grand Theft Auto 6, a game so monumentally large that it is expected to make several billions on the day of release alone.

If ever there was a time and a game to cement the UK's place in the global gaming landscape, then 2026 is that time, and GTA 6 is that game.

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