UK advertising expenditure is forecast to pass £50 billion in 2026, with digital accounting for around 70% of total spend. The most significant shifts are the rapid growth of retail media, the mainstreaming of connected TV (CTV), and the emergence of AI-powered search advertising as a distinct channel requiring its own media strategy.
The Future of Media in the UK: What Brands Need to Know for 2026
UK advertising spend is forecast to exceed £50 billion for the first time in 2026 — a 7.5% rise on 2025 — according to the latest Advertising Association/WARC expenditure report. That’s a market growing five times faster than UK GDP. For brands, the question isn’t whether to advertise. It’s where the money is best deployed, and which agencies can spend it sharply.
Here’s a clear-eyed look at where UK media is going over the next 24 months, written by someone who buys it every day.
What’s growing
Connected TV (TV+) is the headline. TV video-on-demand is forecast to grow 13.8% in 2026, boosted by the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. More than a third of UK video ad spend now flows through “TV+” — the hybrid category that bundles broadcast TV with streaming platforms like ITVX, All 4, BBC iPlayer, and the new ad-supported tiers on Netflix and Disney+. By the end of 2026, an estimated 83% of UK advertisers will increase their CTV spend. If you’re weighing up where CTV fits your own plan, our Radio & TV service covers linear, BVOD and addressable together.
Search is still king. Despite all the talk about AI disrupting search, paid search is forecast to grow 10.2% in 2026 and still accounts for around 44% of UK digital ad spend. Google’s UK search share remains above 92%. The real change is operational: Performance Max is absorbing budget that used to live in standard Search campaigns, which makes measurement and incrementality testing more important — not less. If Performance Max is absorbing budget you used to manage yourselves, our digital advertising service can take that pressure off your team.
Retail media is the fastest-growing major channel. Amazon, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Boots are now significant media owners in their own right. Online retail media hit £1.5 billion in the first half of 2025 alone, per IAB UK. Brands selling through these retailers are increasingly being asked to deploy budget into their media networks as a condition of shelf space.
Out of Home keeps quietly growing. OOH advertising grew 4.4% in Q3 2025, driven mostly by digital OOH (3.3% growth). Programmatic DOOH — where outdoor advertising is bought like online display, with real-time targeting — is the bit moving fastest, and it’s a growing part of our out of home service.
Cinema, audio and online radio are growing too, though from smaller bases. Online radio is forecast at 7.3% growth in 2026.
What’s shrinking
The mirror image is also clear:
- Direct mail is forecast to decline 1.5% in 2026
- National newsbrands down 1.1%
- Magazine brands down 1.7%
- Regional newsbrands down 0.2%
This isn’t a story of these channels dying. It’s a story of supply outpacing demand — which has real implications for buyers. Falling demand means publishers become more willing to negotiate, especially close to deadlines. For brands willing to be flexible, this is where late space opportunities multiply. A heavily discounted full-page in a national paper is often a sharper buy than a small-format digital banner at full rate.
The AI question
UK AI marketing investment grew 47% year-on-year in 2025. Generative AI is now embedded in dynamic creative optimisation, audience targeting, bid management, and increasingly creative production itself.
The promise is real: AI-driven bid management is cutting wasted spend and improving measured ROI. But 56% of senior industry leaders in IAB UK research cite over-reliance on automation as a top-three concern.
The honest read: AI is brilliant at optimising what platforms can already measure — which tends to be bottom-funnel conversion signals. It’s not brilliant at brand-building, at long-term equity, or at deciding whether a channel should be on the plan at all. Those decisions still need a human with commercial judgement, and they always will.
The agencies that will struggle in the AI era are the ones whose value was just executing on platforms. The agencies that will thrive are the ones whose value is strategic — picking the right channels, negotiating the right rates, and knowing when to overrule what the algorithm wants to do.
What this means for advertisers in 2026
Three practical recommendations.
- Keep search and paid social honest with incrementality testing. With Performance Max and AI bid management absorbing more of the decision-making, it’s increasingly hard to know what’s working and what’s just cannibalising organic. Geo-holdout tests and matched-market experiments matter more than ever.
- Diversify into TV+ and CTV before everyone else does. With 83% of advertisers planning to increase CTV spend in 2026, the rate inflation is coming. Brands moving in 2026 will get sharper deals than brands waiting until 2027.
- Use the deflation in print, direct mail and regional press strategically. When demand falls, rates fall. The audience hasn’t disappeared — it’s still there, often very engaged. Late space buying in declining channels can deliver some of the highest-ROI media in your plan, if you have the flexibility to work to publisher deadlines rather than your own.
Where independent agencies fit in
Three trends in 2026 favour independent agencies over the big networks:
- Measurement and accountability are now table-stakes, which rewards agencies that can demonstrate genuine commercial thinking rather than scale-buying volume
- Channel diversification is broader than any single network specialism — you need someone who can plan across linear TV, CTV, DOOH, retail media, paid social and print without privileging the channel that earns the agency the highest commission
- Speed of decision matters more in a market where rates move daily — independent agencies can sign off late-space buys in hours, not days
- This is the case VCM has been making for two decades. The market is finally catching up.
A final thought
The biggest mistake brands will make in 2026 is following the spend headlines without building the measurement framework alongside them. Channels grow fast partly because they’re working, and partly because inventory is expanding faster than buyers’ ability to evaluate them. CTV, retail media and DOOH all sit in that category.
The brands that will win in 2026 are the ones whose 2026 budget model has kept up with the market — not the ones still using the 2023 channel mix on autopilot.
Want to talk about your 2026 media plan? Get in touch — or call us on 0333 577 1848. A short conversation usually goes a long way.