A decade of online spending in one series
Few numbers capture the rise of online shopping as directly as the amount of money that flows through UK internet tills each week. The Office for National Statistics tracks exactly that, publishing the average weekly value of internet retail sales in Great Britain every month. In January 2016 that figure stood at about £854 million a week. By 2026 it had reached roughly £2.8 billion, more than triple the starting level, with a dramatic spike in between when the pandemic pushed almost all shopping online.
This report follows the monthly series from 2016 onward. It shows a market that grew steadily before 2020, exploded during the lockdowns, cooled as shops reopened, and then settled at a new and much higher level. Along the way, two patterns stand out: a powerful seasonal rhythm, with every November and December far above the rest of the year, and a permanent step up in the underlying level that outlasted the pandemic. For the wider picture, see our overview of e-commerce in the UK and the annual view in online retail sales in the UK.
The full monthly picture
The chart below plots the average weekly value of internet retail sales for every month from January 2016 to early 2023. It is the clearest single view of how online spending has moved.
A decade in one line: a steady climb to 2019, a pandemic explosion in 2020 and 2021, a cooling through 2022 to 2023, then a recovery to about £2.8 billion a week by 2026.
The shape tells the story. From 2016 to the end of 2019, the weekly value rose gently, from under £900 million to roughly £1.4 billion, with a clear jump every Christmas. Then came 2020. As lockdowns closed physical stores, the weekly value surged, more than doubling within months and reaching a record of about £3.35 billion in November 2020. It stayed elevated through 2021, then drifted lower in 2022 as shops reopened and shoppers split their spending between online and the high street once more. By early 2023 the weekly value had settled around £2.0 to £2.1 billion, well above where it started but below the lockdown highs. From 2023 onward the ONS still reports the series each month, but no longer freely tabulates the full run of pound values, so the chart shows the latest published readings at the right: about £2.6 billion a week in September 2025 and around £2.8 billion by the spring of 2026. Online spending values rose by about 4.8 percent in the year to October 2025 and 8.3 percent in the year to November 2025, so the underlying trend through 2024 and 2025 was firmly upward. The saw-tooth pattern running through the series is the Christmas effect, examined in more detail below.
The step up, year by year
Averaging each years twelve monthly readings strips out the seasonal noise and shows the underlying trend more plainly.
A pandemic step change: the yearly average roughly doubled between 2019 and 2021, from about £1.4 billion to nearly £2.5 billion a week.
On an annual-average basis, the weekly value climbed from about £989 million in 2016 to £1.45 billion in 2019, a healthy but gradual rise. Then it jumped: the 2020 average reached £2.14 billion and 2021 hit almost £2.49 billion, the highest full-year average in the series. In 2022 it eased slightly to £2.24 billion as the post-lockdown normalisation set in. The key point is that even after that dip, the yearly average sat far above the pre-pandemic trend. Years of gradual growth were compressed into a matter of months, and the market never gave that ground back.
The year everything changed
Zooming in on 2020 alone shows just how fast the shift happened once the first lockdown began.
From £1.5bn to £3.35bn in months: the weekly value climbed steadily through the spring and summer of 2020, then spiked to its all-time high in November.
At the start of 2020 the weekly value was about £1.4 billion, roughly in line with late 2019. The first lockdown in the spring pushed it sharply higher, past £1.8 billion in April and above £2.3 billion by June as households ordered everything from groceries to garden furniture online. It kept climbing through the autumn, then reached its all-time monthly high of about £3.35 billion in November 2020, boosted by Black Friday and pre-Christmas shopping in a year when many stores were shut. December stayed near £3.0 billion. In a single year, online retail pulled forward a level of spending that, on the pre-pandemic trend, might have taken most of a decade to reach.
The Christmas effect
One feature repeats in every year of the data: a steep rise in November and December. Isolating the December figure for each year shows how large and how consistent that seasonal peak is.
Christmas gets bigger every year: December weekly online value climbed from about £1.5 billion in 2016 to more than £3.0 billion in 2020 and 2021.
December is comfortably the biggest month for online spending every year, as shoppers buy gifts and take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. In December 2016 the weekly value was about £1.5 billion; by December 2019 it had reached £2.1 billion, and in the pandemic Decembers of 2020 and 2021 it topped £3.0 billion. Even in 2022, with stores fully open again, December stayed near £2.8 billion. For retailers this concentration matters enormously: a large share of the years online profit is made in a few short weeks, which is why fulfilment, delivery capacity and website performance are stress-tested hardest in the run-up to Christmas.
The latest readings
The continuous monthly series above runs to early 2023. The most recent ONS releases show where the weekly value has moved since.
Back near the highs: after settling around £2.0 billion in early 2023, the weekly value has risen again to about £2.8 billion by 2026.
After the 2022 cooling, the weekly value did not keep falling. Month to month the series has been choppy but rising. Online spending values slipped slightly in October 2025, the first monthly fall since January 2025, then rose again in November 2025, up 0.7 percent on the month and 8.3 percent on the year. The online share climbed too, reaching 28.0 percent in September 2025, 28.6 percent in November 2025 and 28.8 percent by May 2026. In cash terms the weekly value moved from about £2.6 billion in September 2025 to around £2.8 billion through the spring of 2026, close to 29 percent of all retail. In other words, online spending has resumed its upward path, driven by gradual gains in penetration rather than by another shock. The pandemic spike has unwound, but the market has settled far above where it began, and outside the seasonal peaks the weekly figure is edging back toward its earlier highs.
What keeps the weekly figure high
Three forces sit behind the size of the weekly number. The first is sheer participation: more than 60 million people in the UK now shop online, one of the highest rates in the world, spreading spending across almost every category from groceries to furniture. The second is frequency: online has become a routine habit rather than an occasional treat, with fast delivery, easy returns and one-tap checkout removing the friction that once limited how often people bought. The third is mobile, which now carries the majority of online orders and a large share of the value, putting a shop in every pocket.
Seasonality then amplifies all of this at the end of each year. The combination explains why the weekly value can sit around £2.8 billion for much of the year and then leap toward £3 billion or more each December. For the categories, retailers and payment habits behind these totals, our report on e-commerce in the UK goes into more depth, and the global context sits in the revenue of the e-commerce industry worldwide.
Reading the numbers with care
The figures here are the ONS average weekly value of internet retail sales, in million pounds, for Great Britain. Each monthly reading is the average amount spent online per week during that month. The series shown is not seasonally adjusted, which is deliberate: it lets the strong Christmas peaks appear rather than smoothing them away, and it is what makes the November and December spikes so visible.
A few cautions help when comparing figures. The weekly value should not simply be multiplied by 52 to get an annual total, because the ONS also publishes a separate annual online retail value, about £127 billion for 2024, on a slightly different basis. Recent monthly readings are quoted excluding automotive fuel. And because the continuous monthly series here runs to early 2023, the latest 2025 and 2026 points are shown as separate readings rather than as part of the unbroken line. Every figure comes from the ONS Retail Sales Index, the authoritative UK measure of retail and online spending.
UK online weekly value in numbers
A few figures capture the scale and trajectory of the weekly online spend in Great Britain.
Together they show a market that grew fast, spiked during the pandemic, and settled at a permanently higher level.
Frequently Asked Questions
The average weekly value of internet retail sales in Great Britain was about £2.8 billion in 2026, according to the ONS, close to 29 percent of all retail spending. That is up from around £850 million a week in early 2016.
The weekly value has roughly tripled. It was about £854 million a week in January 2016 and reached around £2.8 billion a week by 2026. Most of that jump came during the pandemic.
The weekly value peaked at about £3.35 billion in November 2020, at the height of the lockdowns. As a share of retail, online peaked at roughly 37 percent in early 2021.
Christmas and Black Friday. The average weekly value of internet sales jumps sharply each November and December as shoppers buy gifts online, then falls back in January. That seasonal pattern is clear in every year of the data.
The weekly value eased from the 2020 and 2021 peaks to around £2.0 to £2.2 billion through 2022 and early 2023, as shops reopened. It then recovered, rising back to about £2.8 billion a week by 2026.
Online was about 28.8 percent of all retail in May 2026 on the ONS measure, up from around 19 percent before the pandemic. The share has settled into a band of roughly 27 to 29 percent.
It is the average amount spent online per week in Great Britain in a given month, as measured by the ONS Retail Sales Index. The figures here are the monthly series in million pounds and are not seasonally adjusted, so the Christmas peaks show clearly.
At about £2.8 billion a week the annual figure is very large, but the weekly series should not simply be multiplied by 52. The ONS also publishes an annual online retail value, about £127 billion for 2024, which uses a slightly different basis.
The Office for National Statistics, through its Retail Sales Index, which reports the average weekly value of internet retail sales each month. The monthly series is published by the ONS and compiled here via Statista.
Office for National Statistics - Retail Sales Index, average weekly value of internet retail sales.
ONS via Statista - average weekly value of internet retail sales, monthly, Jan 2016 to Feb 2023.
House of Commons Library - recent weekly internet sales values, 2025 and 2026.