Findings in Summary
Vegan Statistics uk (2020)
Want to know how many people in the UK are vegan or how many might be thinking about it? And what about veganism in search trends or business? We carried out a survey and crunched the numbers to bring you 2020 vegan facts and figures. Here’s the summary and you’ll find more data within.
7.1%
of UK over 16s say they are vegan.
201,000
searches in January 2020 for "vegan" in Google UK (up from 135,000 in Jan 2019)
3,905,000
That equates to 3.9 million vegan over 16s in the UK
977
limited companies with "vegan" in their name on the companies house register (as of 15th October 2020)
How many vegans are there in the uk?
There are an estimated 3.9 million vegans in the UK.
That’s based on our survey of 1,000 over 16s in the UK (carried out in October 2020) in which 7.1% said they are vegan.
There are an estimated 55 million over 16s in the UK, giving us 3.9 million vegans.
In addition to those already vegan a further 14.5% say they’re considering following a vegan diet (7.5% are currently meat eaters considering veganism while 7.1% are vegetarians considering veganism).
Women are likelier to be vegan than men
While 7.1% of UK over 16s say they’re vegan, it’s women who are the likelier to be:
- 5.9% of men say they’re vegan
- 8.1% of women say they’re vegan
Age Affects it too
Veganism in Search
A really handy way to identify growing trends within a population is to look at its search habits!
And of course, not everyone typing “veganism” into Google is becoming one! But it does help us to understand the popularity and awareness of given topics.
Using data from Kwfinder.com, we can see the following trends comparing January 2019 with January 2020:
| Keyword | Searches in Google UK Jan 2019 | Searches in Google UK Jan 2020 | % Change |
| Vegan | 135000 | 201000 | 48.89% |
| Vegan recipes | 110000 | 165000 | 50.00% |
| Veganuary | 60500 | 90500 | 49.59% |
| Vegan Diet | 27100 | 33100 | 22.14% |
Businesses For vegan customers
Wherever a movement takes off, there are people to profit not too far behind. And while we cannot find an exact number of businesses selling products specifically for vegans, what we did do is take a look on the Companies House website for all businesses with “vegan” in their name.
- As of 15th October 2020, there are 977 companies listed on the Companies House register with “vegan” in their name.
A growing movement
Veganism is gaining momentum as a movement with so many reasons behind people’s decisions to make the change. Whether it’s for health reasons, weight management, environmental reasons or because of views on animal rights and animal cruelty, we’re clearly seeing a significant growth in numbers.
And with more products on the market to make it easier to find alternatives to the meat and dairy products so many feel they can’t manage without, it’s likely this trend will continue upwards.
