Brits Spent £5bn On Dating Last Year, Up £1bn From Year Before

Brits spent over £5bn searching for love last year, a figure that is almost a billion more than the year before.

This is according to new analysis from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) on behalf of Match.com.

The data found that the average cost of a date is now £127 for both parties, if you include things like clothing, gifts, cosmetics, hairdresser appointments and contraceptives.

For just the actual date itself, which might be something like drinks, a meal at a restaurant or other entertainment, the average cost for UK citizens is about £69, Cebr found.

And Brits are spending much more on dates than other nationalities, with the typical cost of a Dutch date coming in at £49, and Germans spending £40 per date on average.

The economic organisation also found that 33% of British singles are now actively dating, up from 23% in 2014.

Speaking about the findings, Match.com’s managing director of Northern Europe, Karl Gregory, said: “Brits spend almost double their European counterparts on dates, which is a great thing for singles and for UK PLC.”

The data was taken from Cebr’s own economic analysis, combined with two surveys of over 8,000 active daters across Europe.