Market research industry statistics 2026

Key figures at a glance

• The global insights industry was worth US$153 billion in 2024, and ESOMAR expects it to pass US$160 billion in 2025 ¹.
• Market research itself (agencies and fieldwork) accounted for US$56 billion, growing 4.8%; research software grew faster, by 11.5%, to US$62 billion ¹.
• 70% of market research turnover comes from quantitative research and 14% from qualitative research (2023) ⁵.
• Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing region: +9.5% in 2023, against +8.0% worldwide ⁷.
• The US insights and analytics industry reached US$89.3 billion in 2025, up 7.8% ⁸.
• The US had 952,700 market research analyst jobs in 2025, with employment projected to grow 7% by 2035 ¹¹.
• 53% of researchers surveyed by Qualtrics use AI regularly ¹³.

How big is the market research industry?

ESOMAR, the global association for research and insights, measures the “insights industry” as three sectors: market research, research software and reporting. Together they reached US$153 billion in 2024, and ESOMAR forecasts more than US$160 billion for 2025 ¹. The industry was measured at US$142 billion in 2023 (+8%) ², almost US$130 billion in 2022 ³ and almost US$119 billion in 2021, up from US$102 billion in 2020 ⁴.

Two cautions when comparing years. ESOMAR revises past figures in each edition (2021 is “almost US$119 billion” in one edition and US$118 billion in the next) ³⁴, and older figures that only covered “traditional” market research measure something smaller, so they should not be put on the same line.

Where the money goes: research, software and reporting

In 2024, research software (US$62 billion) was larger than market research (US$56 billion), and reporting reached US$35 billion ¹. Software is also the fastest-growing part: +11.5% in 2024, against +4.8% for market research and +8% for reporting ¹.

Inside market research companies, about 62% of turnover comes from full-service work including fieldwork, about 31% from subscriptions and software, and about 7% from consultancy ¹. In other words, most agencies still earn their money from custom projects: designing a study, collecting the data and reporting on it.

Methods: quantitative still dominates

Quantitative research made up 70% of market research turnover in 2023, qualitative research 14%, advisory and secondary research 15%, and other methods 1% ⁵.

The most common types of projects worldwide were market measurement (14.3% of turnover), customer satisfaction and CRM (13.2%), new product development (11.4%), usage and attitude studies (9.7%) and user experience research (8.7%) ⁶.

Regions and countries

Asia Pacific grew fastest in 2023 (+9.5%, against +8.0% worldwide), with strong growth in India (+14.8%), Vietnam (+17.2%) and Australia (+10.2%) ⁷. Europe was the second-largest region, at about US$34 billion, including US$15.5 billion of market research; the UK alone accounted for US$4.7 billion of market research turnover ⁹.

The United States is the largest single market. The Insights Association, with ESOMAR, Outsell and Michigan State University, measured the US insights and analytics industry at US$89.3 billion in 2025, up 7.8%, with digital data analytics making up 37% of revenue ⁸.

In the United Kingdom, the Market Research Society (MRS) values the wider research and evidence market at £18.74 billion of value added a year, with about 350,000 full-time jobs; 64% of UK research firms work for clients abroad, and MRS describes the UK as the second-largest supplier of research services in the world ¹⁰. This wide measure includes in-house insight teams. Counted more narrowly, companies registered as market research firms had a turnover of about £6 billion in 2024 ¹²: the two figures measure different things and should not be compared.

There is no recent, freely available ranking of countries by research turnover: the detailed country tables are in ESOMAR’s paid reports. To compare suppliers in a given country, browse our market research guides and country pages.

Jobs and pay in the United States

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 952,700 market research analyst jobs in 2025. Employment is projected to grow by 7% to 1,019,000 jobs in 2035, “much faster than average”, with about 82,000 openings a year ¹¹.

The median pay was US$78,760 a year in May 2025. It was highest in the information sector (US$102,670), management of companies (US$99,850) and finance and insurance (US$94,330) ¹¹.

AI and the insights industry

In Greenbook’s 2025 GRIT survey of 992 insights professionals, 80% said their organisation endorses the adoption of AI, 67% of suppliers build AI into client deliverables and 50% are reskilling their teams for AI ¹⁴.

A Qualtrics survey of more than 3,000 researchers in 14 countries found that 53% use AI regularly and 9 in 10 have experimented with it; 45% of those who use synthetic data see it as their most reliable source ¹³. Qualtrics sells research software, so these figures come from a vendor.

What this means for research buyers

• Software is cheaper, but custom research is still where the expertise lies. Use DIY tools for simple, quick surveys; brief an agency when you need a representative sample, hard-to-reach targets, qualitative depth or several countries.
• Ask how AI is used in your project: for coding open answers, translations or reporting, and how results are checked by a researcher.
• Fieldwork capacity is local. Even global agencies often subcontract data collection to local partners, so check who will actually run the interviews.
• Compare several proposals. Prices and approaches vary a lot from one agency to another: you can send one request to up to 5 companies from any country or city page of this directory.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. ESOMAR, Global Market Research 2025: inside the US$153bn insights industry (Research World, Nov. 2025)
2. ESOMAR, Global Market Research 2024 (publication page, Sept. 2024)
3. ESOMAR, Global Market Research 2023 (publication page, Sept. 2023)
4. ESOMAR, Global Market Research 2022 (publication page, Sept. 2022)
5. ESOMAR, How are research methods evolving? (Research World, March 2025)
6. ESOMAR, Global evolution of market research projects (Research World, April 2025)
7. ESOMAR, The remarkable ascent of Asia Pacific in global insights (Research World, Jan. 2025)
8. Insights Association, U.S. insights & analytics industry reaches $89.3 billion (Aug. 2026)
9. ESOMAR, 2023’s market research anchor: Europe’s insights industry (Research World, Dec. 2024)
10. MRS, UK research and evidence market hits record £18.7 billion valuation (March 2026)
11. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Market Research Analysts
12. MRS, Industry size (ONS data)
13. Research Live, Most researchers using AI regularly, finds Qualtrics study (Nov. 2025)
14. Greenbook, 2025 GRIT Insights Practice Report