Healthy Outlook for UK Market Research Industry

Abstract

The Market Research Society (MRS) is the professional industry body for those producing and using techniques for market, social and economic research. Over the last forty years the UK market research industry has gone from strength to strength and the MRS has grown alongside it. In 1946, the inaugural year for the MRS, there were 23 members. Today the Society has over 6,500 members, making it the largest market research organisation in the world. In 1988 the 350 market research companies who employ the majority of these individuals had a turnover in excess of £300 million. Thirty‐two of the largest companies who form the Association of Market Survey Organisations (AMSO), representing 80% of the industry's turnover, had a growth in combined turnover of 15% in 1988 and their overseas subsidiaries accounted for a turn‐over of £100 million. The Association of British Market Research Companies (ABMRC) representing many of the other research companies also reports a substantial growth in turnover. Evidently market research in the UK is in a very healthy state, but who buys it, and what is its future?