The Signal

UK Movement Intelligence by Data Jam

May 2026

Audience movement trends across the UK

Like-for-Like Growth

+20.7%

Year-over-year increase across matched locations — Saturdays widen the lead

May 2025

278M

impressions

May 2026

336M

impressions

Peak Day

13.97M

May 2 — Saturday

Avg Daily

11.2M

+20% vs 2025 (9.3M)

Why like-for-like?

We compare only locations that were active in both May 2025 and May 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

May 2026 vs 2025 — with event overlays

Peak event days

Scheduled service update (May 5)

Chart shows 1–30 May. 31 May data still syncing at time of publication.

What Drove Movement

10.0M

12.9M

👑

Saturday is Still King

12.9M avg — widest YoY gain of the week (+29%)

Every Saturday in May exceeded 11.5M. Saturday is opening the gap on the rest of the week — the largest day, the largest YoY gain, no exceptions.

May 2Peak day of the month13.97M+49.1%

May 9Highest YoY % Saturday13.82M+55.6%

May 16Steady mid-month13.40M+41.4%

May 23FA Cup Final Sat11.92M+20.3%

May 30CL Final Sat11.57M+9.1%

🔧

A Service Update — and a Full Recovery

May 5 dipped; May 7 was back to +40%

A scheduled telemetry rollout briefly reduced reporting on Tuesday May 5. Networks held the dip for a single day, recovered through midweek, and rebounded to +39.5% YoY on Thursday. The recovery profile matters more than the dip — predictable, fast, complete.

Mon 4 May

10.1M

+14%

Tue 5 May

4.2M

-54%

Thu 7 May

12.1M

+40%

🇺🇸

Bank Holidays Bracket the Month

Both BH Mondays delivered above-trend impressions

Two UK bank holidays sat at the start and end of May. Despite Monday being the lowest-volume weekday, both BHs cleared 10M— well above the regular Monday baseline. Bank holidays consistently outperform regular Mondays.

May Mondays

May 410.1M— Early May BH (+14%)

May 1111.6M— Post-recovery (+54%)

May 1811.5M— Mid-month (+41%)

May 2510.5M— Spring BH (+9%)

🎓

Half-Term Held the Trend

May 26–30 stayed positive despite quieter base

UK schools were on half-term the final week of May. The 2025 comparison week was already elevated, so YoY gains compressed — but every weekday in half-term still showed positive growth. The network rebounded to +22% on Fri 29 Mayand closed the month above 2025 across the board.

Half-term week YoY

Tue 26+10%

Wed 27+5%

Thu 28+7%

Fri 29+22%

Sat 30+9%

Day of Week

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

Mon

+19%

Tue

+5%

Wed

+14.8%

Thu

+26.2%

Fri

+19.8%

Sat

+29.1%

Sun

+24.5%

Saturday is opening the gap. At +29.1% YoY, it led every other day of the week by some margin. Sunday (+24.5%) and Thursday (+26.2%) followed close behind. Tuesday's modest +5.0% reflects the single-day service-update event on May 5 — excluding that day, Tuesdays grew in line with the rest of the week.

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 May 2025 and May 2026. All impressions are raw audience counts with no modelling or extrapolation applied. Chart shows 1–30 May; 31 May data still syncing at time of publication and excluded from the daily chart.

Why like-for-like?

Daily Movement

What Drove Movement

Day of Week

Methodology

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