The UK’s book publishers enjoyed a bumper 2025 according to the Publishers’ Association.
The trade association for the book industry says that record revenues of £7.4 billion proves that publishing is “one of the UK’s strongest performing creative industries”. This increase was across the board. UK sales were up, as were export sales. Consumers bought increasing numbers of novels in both print and suffix formats while digital continues its rise on academic book sectors. The only area to show a decline was educational publishing.
Print continues to be the strongest format for consumer publishing where print supplied £2.1 billion of the £2.6 billion, an increase of 2% over last year. Digital formats brought in revenue of £558 million and audiobooks accounted for £255 million.
Fiction accounts for £1.1 billion, an 8% increase, while non fiction revenue dropped 3% to £1.0 billion. Children’s books increased 7% to £493 million.
Both home and export markets contributed a 3% increase, thus maintaining the differential between them. UK sales delivered $1.6 billion says the Publishers’ Association while export brought in £1.1 billion.
The export market is far more important to academic publishing than other sectors. The home market is worth £860 million while exports bringing in revenue £2.9 billion. Of the £3.7 billion that the sector achieves in revenue, digital formats bring in £2.9 billion alone, an 8% increase.
Academic books is worth £1 billion, with print slightly ahead of digital at £568 million compared to £482 million. In all print is valued at £821 million across the sector, 1% less than in 2024. The strength in academic publishing is a reflection of the strength that the UK has in university and other research.
The education market is the one sector to report a drop in revenue, 4% lower at £636 million. Print continues to dominate formats for textbooks. In the UK this amounts to £131 million, a drop of 11%, compared to digital delivery of £36 million which is a 16% fall in revenues from the UK.
This is another area where exports generate more revenue than UK sales. Overall export revenues of £469 million is the same as last year, with sales of printed books increasing slightly to £407 million compared to a 5% drop of £61 million in revenue from digital formats.
Publishers Association CEO Dan Conway says: “In 2025 we were more likely to listen to a book, or to read content digitally, than ever before. This shows how right across our academic, education and consumer publishing sectors we are continuing to find ways to connect readers with content in the format that best suits them.
“These latest export figures are a reminder of the role of publishing and the wider creative industries as cultural ambassadors for the UK, and an important vehicle for sharing education, information, culture and ideas globally.”
