The Signal

UK Movement Intelligence by Data Jam

February 2026

Audience movement trends across the UK

Like-for-Like Growth

+17.3%

Year-over-year increase across matched locations — despite 23 rain days

Feb 2025

267M

impressions

Feb 2026

313M

impressions

Peak Day

13.1M

Valentine's Day

Avg Daily

11.2M

+17% vs 2025

Why like-for-like?

We compare only sensors that were active in both February 2025 and February 2026 — same locations, same measurement zones. This isolates genuine audience growth from network expansion (our network grew 46% year-over-year), giving you the true market signal.

Daily Movement

February 2026 vs 2025 — with event overlays

Peak event days

What Drove Movement

10.0M

13.1M

❤️

Love Is in the Air

Valentine's Day drove the month's peak

Feb 14 2025

10.0M

Feb 14 2026

13.1M

A +30.5% surge year-over-year. Valentine's fell on a Saturday — and it was one of only 5 dry days all month. Restaurants, cinemas, and retail all saw the uplift.

🌧️

The Rainproof Audience

23 rain days. +17% growth. Go figure.

February 2026 was relentlessly wet — 92.6mm of rain across London alone, with only 5 genuinely dry days all month. Yet audiences still grew +17% year-over-year.

Rain days (>0.5mm)23 of 28

Wettest day (Feb 3)10.0mm

Valentine's Day rainfall0.0mm

🎒

The Half-Term Effect

Schools out, families out

February half-term (16th–20th) turned weekdays into weekends. Monday the 16th hit 12.1M impressions — higher than a typical Saturday.

Weekday boost

Half-term weekdays averaged 11.9M vs 10.7M for non-holiday weekdays — an 11% uplift from family and leisure traffic.

⚽

Football Saturdays

FA Cup 4th Round + Premier League

FA Cup 4th Round Saturday (Feb 7th) saw the biggest single-day YoY jump of the month: +44.8% to 12.9M impressions.

Feb 7FA Cup 4th Round12.9M+44.8%

Feb 14Valentine's + PL13.1M+30.5%

Feb 21PL Weekend12.0M+7.7%

Feb 28Month-end + PL13.1M+20.3%

🎬

Cinema February

Valentine's week + horror month-end

A strong February slate kept entertainment traffic flowing:

Feb 5Send Help— Comedy blockbuster

Feb 13Wuthering Heights— Valentine's week romance

Feb 20Wasteman— Half-term action

Feb 27Scream 7— Horror franchise return

📈

The February Finish

Payday Friday + Month-end Saturday

The final weekend delivered a one-two punch: Payday Friday (27th) at 11.3M, then month-end Saturday (28th) matched Valentine's Day at 13.1M.

Scream 7 opened on the 27th, Premier League fixtures ran on the 28th, and payday spending kicked in. Predictable — and plannable.

Day of Week

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

Mon

+19.6%

Tue

+18.1%

Wed

+16.7%

Thu

+14.1%

Fri

+14.6%

Sat

+20%

Sun

+18%

Saturday is the new king. With +20% YoY growth, Saturdays led all days of the week. Valentine's Day and month-end Premier League both fell on Saturdays, amplifying the effect. Monday also surged +19.6% — boosted by half-term family traffic.

Network Growth

Network Expansion

+46%

year-over-year growth

Total Impressions

637M

all devices, Feb 2026

Venue Types

retail, leisure, transport & more

Methodology

Data sourced from Data Jam's UK sensor network across retail, leisure, entertainment, transport, and hospitality venues. Like-for-like comparison uses only sensors active in both February 2025 and February 2026. Weather data from Open-Meteo (London representative). Cinema releases from UK distribution schedules. Football fixtures from TheSportsDB. All impressions are raw sensor counts with no modelling or extrapolation applied.

Why like-for-like?

Daily Movement

What Drove Movement

Day of Week

Network Growth

Methodology

Want this data for your locations?