UK Marketing Budget Benchmarks 2026

UK Marketing Budget Benchmarks 2026 is the figure most often requested by UK CMOs trying to pressure-test their own budget against the market. It is also the figure most often requested by UK boards trying to pressure-test their CMO.

1. The headline aggregate

The aggregate stability is the headline you should not over-read. Total UK marketing investment as a share of revenue is roughly flat year-on-year. What has materially shifted is composition. AI-related spend is up sharply. Classic content production and traditional agency retainers are down. Lifecycle and CRM is up. The shape of the budget has changed even where the size has not.

2. UK marketing spend as % of revenue, by sector

• Ecommerce / DTC: 12.4%
• SaaS / B2B Tech: 11.6%
• Travel and hospitality: 9.2%
• Retail (multi-channel): 8.7%
• Healthcare and wellness: 7.1%
• Financial services: 6.4%
• Local services / professional services: 5.8%
• Industrial / manufacturing: 3.9%

3. UK channel-mix benchmark — median 2026 vs 2023

• AI-driven media: 29% (up from 11% in 2023)
• Classic paid media (manual buy): 12% (down from 24%)
• Lifecycle / CRM (incl. autonomous email): 14% (up from 6%)
• SEO & content production: 9% (down from 14%)
• GEO & AI search optimisation: 4% (new line)
• Brand investment: 11% (up from 9%)
• Traditional agency retainers: 11% (down from 17%)
• Marketing technology: 7% (down from 11%)
• Other (events, PR, sponsorship, etc.): 3%

The trajectory in this table is the most operationally significant pattern in the dataset. AI-driven media has overtaken every other single line in the median UK marketing budget. Lifecycle / CRM has more than doubled its share. Classic paid media — meaning manually managed campaign types rather than the automated AI-native variants — has roughly halved.

4. Per-employee marketing spend

Per-employee marketing spend rose 14% year-on-year against a roughly flat aggregate budget — because UK marketing teams are getting smaller (-12%) faster than UK marketing budgets are flat (+0%). The org-chart story is documented in our UK AI Marketing Jobs Tracker.

5. The leader-vs-laggard divergence

Across every operational metric we benchmark, the gap between UK AI-leader-cohort brands and AI-laggard-cohort brands has widened year-on-year. Leader cohort: 28% lower blended CAC, 34% higher revenue per marketing employee, 4.7× higher AI assistant citation share, 2.3× higher AI assistant referral conversion rate, and a 19% higher proportion of marketing budget in flexible variable lines rather than fixed retainers.

The gap is the operational case for AI investment more clearly than any single ROI calculation could be. Brands at AI-leader-cohort intensity are now structurally outperforming brands at AI-laggard-cohort intensity on the metrics that decide CMO tenure.

Methodology summary

Benchmarks are constructed from anonymised UK client benchmark panel data (~180 brands across 8 sectors), the UK Marketing Leadership Survey 2026 (n=412), and triangulated against publicly disclosed marketing line items in UK plc accounts where available. Confidence interval at the headline percentage-of-revenue level is +/-0.4% at a 95% confidence level. Cross-tabs by sector and revenue band available via the press room.

Suggested citation: Creative Marketing Research, UK Marketing Budget Benchmarks, Q2 2026, Creative Marketing Group, April 2026. Available at creativemarketingltd.co.uk/uk-marketing-budget-benchmarks-2026.