Media Industry Outlook 2025
Our Media Industry Outlook report brings together the insights and perspectives of 250 UK media business leaders across sectors including gaming, marcoms and television. Building on our 2024 findings, this year’s report sheds light on the evolving challenges and opportunities shaping the industry today.
In 2025, we also placed a spotlight on Sport, gathering insights from decision-makers in football, motorsport and cricket. These findings are not included in the main report, but in separate insight articles.
While optimism has improved compared to last year, only 33% feel very optimistic over the longer term. As economic uncertainty persists, what can business leaders do to navigate the challenging conditions?
Access our Media Industry Outlook to explore our insights on areas including funding, workforce and innovation reliefs. What can media businesses do to keep pace in an ever-evolving environment and maintain a competitive edge in 2025 and beyond?
- UK media landscape
- Funding
- Innovation reliefs
- Share plans
- Recruitment and redundancies
- Gaming spotlight
UK media landscape
The past year has been marked by significant change, uncertainty and economic volatility. Optimism has improved since 2024, but our findings indicate this is more short-term and drops when thinking longer term.
What can be done to make business leaders feel more optimistic about the future?
Funding
Our survey showed that 99% of media businesses were planning a funding round, highlighting the need for ongoing investment. However, only 28% of our 250 respondents are planning a funding round in the next 11 months, a decrease from the 35% in our 2024 survey.
Is this linked to the decline in longer-term business confidence?
Innovation reliefs
99% of the surveyed media businesses have submitted an innovation relief claim in the past year. Our research also shows that 59% submitted a creative relief claim, an increase from last year, and 54% submitted an R&D claim, another increase on our 2024 findings.
Still, our report shows that many businesses may be leaving money on the table.
Are you making the most of the reliefs available to you?
Share plans
Media businesses are increasingly adopting share option schemes to retain and incentivise employees.
The benefits of retaining an engaged and motivated workforce are clear, especially given the high cost of losing key team members in terms of time and recruitment fees.
As share plans grow in popularity among media businesses, discover common pitfalls to avoid and learn how to set these up effectively for sustainable growth.
Recruitment and redundancies
The challenge to recruit the right talent remains. 61% of media businesses are planning to use off-payroll workers rather than hiring new staff, highlighting an increasing demand for flexibility among media businesses.
On the other hand, redundancies among media businesses have fallen from an average of 19% in 2024 to 13% in 2025. However, employers are still being forced to make difficult decisions, with only 1% of respondents not making any redundancies in the past 12 months.
Against a backdrop of widespread layoffs and rapidly evolving technology, explore what media businesses need to do to build a high-performing workforce.
Read more about recruitment and redundancies in our full report >
Gaming spotlight
What impact will the government’s new £60m funding package have on the UK gaming industry? With improved R&D approval rates and easier access to funding, many game studios are feeling more optimistic about growth and investment.
As international expansion tops the list of investment priorities, discover how UK studios are scaling up their businesses and reaching new markets.
UK sports industry outlook
