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Welcome To The United Kingdom
Country number
205
Selected MR Agencies

An Introduction to The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, apart from being home to MrWeb and to the 2012 Olympics, can claim to be one of the great nations of history - birthplace of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, home to the mother of Parliaments at Westminster and the great city of London around it, hub of possibly the largest Empire the world has ever seen, at its height in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and home to the inventors of the steam engine, post office, old age pension, jet propulsion, television and the WorldWideWeb - as well as to Shakespeare, Darwin, Isaac Newton, Crick and Watson, and Douglas Adams. See full country profile.

Latest Research News from The UK

Mar 27
Dutch insights-based consultancy SKIM has appointed Adrien Bourgeois as Relationship Director, based in Paris and responsible for driving the growth of client partnerships in France. Mar 27 2024
Mar 26
In London, Havas Media Network UK has joined cross-media measurement initiative Origin, completing the representation of the global marcoms networks within the programme. There are now 51 funding stakeholders in total including advertisers, media owners and advertising agencies. Mar 26 2024


531 current British jobs including:

Qual / Quant Associate Director - Financial, London (3 days) / Hybrid working, GBP 50-65,000 + Excellent Benefits - (posted Mar 27 2024)
Quant Senior Research Exec - Retail, London / Hybrid working, Up to GBP 35,000 + Benefits - (posted Mar 27 2024)
Senior Insight Executive, Qual - Boutique Research Agency, London (Hybrid), GBP 30-33,000 + bonus and bens - (posted Mar 26 2024)
Research Manager - Public Sector, London, GBP 37-43,000 - (posted Mar 26 2024)


Fast Facts
Map of The United Kingdom
CAPITAL: London
GOVERNMENT: Unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy
AREA: 243,610 sq km
POPULATION: 63,162,000 (2011 est.)
MAJOR LANGUAGE: Official Language: English
London under blue sky? United Kingdom
London under blue sky? United Kingdom


Subjects and Objects English is the world's most widely used language - only the third most common native language in the world behind Mandarin (by a mile) and Spanish (by a whisker) according to Wikipedia, with 375 million native speakers. According to some estimates, just under 2 billion people speak English, and it's an official language in 54 countries.

86-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, who celebrated her Diamond Jubilee this summer, is the constitutional monarch and head of state of sixteen sovereign states, known as Commonwealth Realms - the latter have a combined land area of 18.8m sq km (7.3 million square miles), the largest area under any one head of state in the world - and a population of 137 million, which clearly isn't the largest of anything. Going back to 1922, her grandfather George V was the sovereign of around 458 million people, one fifth of the world's then population, spread over an area of almost 34m sq km (13m sq miles), just under twice the size of modern day Russia and almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area.

And as if that weren't enough, London is now the only city to have hosted the Olympic Games three times!

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The United Kingdom in Profile

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, apart from being home to MrWeb and to the 2012 Olympics, can claim to be one of the great nations of history - birthplace of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, home to the mother of Parliaments at Westminster and the great city of London around it, hub of possibly the largest Empire the world has ever seen, at its height in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and home to the inventors of the steam engine, post office, old age pension, jet propulsion, television and the WorldWideWeb - as well as to Shakespeare, Darwin, Isaac Newton, Crick and Watson, and Douglas Adams.

Two of Britain's great historical legacies came together in the London Olympics: the modern multicultural society which - partly thanks to our Empire and Commonwealth - is seen nowhere better than in London; and the introduction of several of the world's most popular sports. Cricket and rugby have spread via the Empire and Commonwealth nations and are increasingly pushing out beyond them to a wider audience, while association football is by a distance the world's favourite sport - Britain not only introduced it in its modern form, but has the decency to lose to a variety of other nations on a very regular basis, thus avoiding an embarrassing monopoly and furthering the sport's popularity. We've done the same with lawn tennis - given it to the world and then taken a gracious back seat. Britain also helped save the modern Olympics from an early grave - after the somewhat shambolic experiences of the 1900 and 1904 games, it was the success of the London 1908 Games along with an unofficial event held in Greece in 1906 - which helped to restore respect and start the movement back on the road to what it is today.Brits are often characterised as being reserved and formal; conversely but at least as undesirably our travelling sports fans have given us an association with yob culture; we perhaps worry and criticise too much, and do sarcasm like nobody else on earth, except perhaps the French; we're sometimes portrayed as jingoistic and backward-looking - it wouldnt be surprising given the above historical record, and indeed if you look at the 'A Little Knowledge' section to your left you'll see a whole lot of trumpet-blowing nostalgia; our economy is not escaping the prevailing gloom of the moment; and our fashion sense and our contribution to world cuisine are sometimes trashed, the latter quite unfairly given the sensational puddings available in another great British institution, the pub. However we are in fact a relaxed bunch, healthily cynical and with a self-deprecating sense of humour, inventive, independent in spirit, tolerant and compassionate, and we invite visitors to MrWeb to sample our famous hospitality and enjoy everything our great country has to offer.

Some Business and General Info

GDP: $2,308.5 bn (2012 est.); $36,605 per capita

Religions Christian (Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist) 71.6%; Muslim 2.7%; Hindu 1%; other 1.6%; unspecified or none 23.1% (2001 census)

Currency: Pound Sterling; 1 = $US 1.57

Telephone Code: + 44

Overview of the Research Industry

MR Association(s):

MRS (The Market Research Society)

The UK is the 3rd largest research market in the world and the 2nd largest in Europe according to ESOMAR, whose Global Prices Study 2012 says the country was the 5th most expensive for carrying out research.
Source: ESOMAR

Overview of Trade and Industry

A summary of the British economy will appear here shortly.

My view
from...
The United Kingdom
Researchers Talk!
Have your say!
If you are a researcher based in The United Kingdom, in whatever capacity, then we would love to hear from you!

Email me:
laurence@mrweb.com

Views from...

Views from a number of UK researchers will appear here soon - get in touch if you want to add yours!