The Signal

UK Movement Intelligence by Data Jam

April 2026

Audience movement trends across the UK

Like-for-Like Growth

+16.5%

Year-over-year increase across matched locations — Easter dipped, the network bounced

Apr 2025

284M

impressions

Apr 2026

331M

impressions

Peak Day

12.09M

April 25 — Saturday

Avg Daily

11.0M

+17% vs 2025 (9.5M)

Why like-for-like?

We compare only locations that were active in both April 2025 and April 2026 — same venues, same measurement zones. This isolates genuine audience growth from network expansion, giving you the true market signal. The matched locations in this report represent a consistent, comparable set across both years.

Daily Movement

April 2026 vs 2025 — with event overlays

Peak event days

Easter Sunday dip (April 5)

What Drove Movement

🌮

The Easter Effect

One Sunday lost. The rest of the month won.

Easter Sunday fell on April 5 — the only day of the month to dip below 2025. Family time replaced screen time. -27% YoY. By Tuesday it was back to +13%. Predictable, plannable, contained.

Sat 4 Apr

11.5M

+13%

Sun 5 Apr

8.3M

-27%

Tue 7 Apr

11.3M

+13%

6.1M

10.6M

🚀

The April 20 Surge

The biggest YoY day of the month — +72.5%

The clearest example of when the calendar moves with you. April 20 was a regular working Monday in 2026. In 2025 it was Easter Monday Bank Holiday. Result: the largest YoY swing of the month — +72.5% in a single day.

Useful pattern for forward planning: bank-holiday calendar shifts create huge YoY swings — both ways. Watch for them when comparing month-on-month or year-on-year reporting.

👑

Saturday Held Through Easter

11.7M avg — even Easter Saturday cleared the bar

Every Saturday in April cleared 11.4M — including Easter Saturday. Saturday remains the largest day of the week, averaging +14.5% YoYeven with the Easter calendar working against it.

April Saturdays

Apr 411.49M— Easter Sat (+13%)

Apr 1111.69M— +17%

Apr 1811.64M— +22%

Apr 2512.09M— Peak day (+22%)

📈

Midweek Did the Heavy Lifting

Wed + Thu both up +19% YoY

Wednesdays and Thursdays were the standout performers of the working week. Both grew +19% YoY on average — outpacing every weekend day in like-for-like terms. The signal: commuter traffic is widening, not narrowing.

April DOW YoY (matched)

Wed+19.0%

Thu+19.0%

Fri+17.9%

Tue+16.2%

Sun+15.8%

Sat+14.5%

Mon+11.8%

Day of Week

Average daily impressions by day of week (thousands) — like-for-like

Mon

+11.8%

Tue

+16.2%

Wed

+19%

Thu

+19%

Fri

+17.9%

Sat

+14.5%

Sun

+15.8%

Wednesday and Thursday led the YoY chart. Both grew +19.0% — outpacing weekends in like-for-like terms. Saturday remained the largest day by volume (11.7M), but Easter held its growth percentage to +14.5%. Sunday's +15.8% looks modest, but it absorbed the Easter Sunday -27% dip and still finished above 2025. The shape of the week is widening, not narrowing.

Methodology

Data sourced from Data Jam's UK measurement network across retail, leisure, entertainment, transport, and hospitality venues. Like-for-like comparison uses only locations active in both April 2025 and April 2026. All impressions are raw audience counts with no modelling or extrapolation applied.

Why like-for-like?

Daily Movement

What Drove Movement

Day of Week

Methodology

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