Market Data

In this section:

2024 Market Sizing
How is the market size calculated?
Why do we carry out this exercise?
Who are the contributors?

2024 Market Sizing

Our annual research on the social impact market revealed that the value of social investments in the UK was worth £11.2bn at the end of 2024, representing more than 6000 transactions.

Our market sizing estimate includes more than 100 different funds or social investment programmes that meet our criteria of social impact investment in the UK. These organisations include fund managers, intermediaries and social banks that invest directly into social purpose organisations, projects, and real assets.

Find out more about our market systems approach.

£11.2bn

Value of the social impact investment market at the end of 2024
£2.1bn

Amount of commitments made during the year 2024
13x

Growth in thirteen years, increasing from £830m in 2011

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Find out more about our market systems approach
Our approach

How is the market size calculated?

The UK Social impact investment market is a subset of the broader UK impact investment market. For the purposes of our market sizing exercise, we define social impact investment as:

‘Investment into social purpose organisations such as charities, social enterprises, start-ups, or real assets such as social and affordable housing. The investment enables them to deliver products or services that create measurable, lasting social impact that improves people’s lives. Social impact investors are seeking positive social impact as well as a financial return and both investees and investor demonstrate social impact intent.’

To calculate an estimate of the market size, we use the following methodology to guide the research.

Build and refresh the market list of impact investing organisations that meet our definition and criteria
Define the key metrics and definitions for our market sizing approach

The two main metrics captured in this annual exercise include:

Size £m - Outstanding amount/value, as at the end of the calendar year. We also include an estimate of the number (i.e. # count) of transactions between Fund Manager & Frontline/Asset that make up the size.
Deal flow £m – The amount (and #) of new commitments made during the calendar year.

Collect and aggregate key metric data for the market list of impact investing organisations
Collate and estimate the investor composition of the market
Benchmark our findings and compare to our prior years and other organisations’ market sizing reports

Find out more about our methodology.

Why do we carry out this exercise?

Each year since 2016, we have produced a comprehensive estimate of the size of the UK social investment market through our market data research.

As well as being an investor ourselves, Better Society Capital has a mandate to grow the wider social impact investment market. We measure the market to see how much progress is being made as well as to understand who is active in the market and where the investment is going.

Find out more about our progress in growing the market for social impact investment since 2016.

Who are the contributors?

We include >100 different funds or programmes that meet our criteria of social impact investment in the UK. These organisations include fund managers, intermediaries and social banks that invest directly into social purpose organisations, projects and real assets. You can see all those included below split by market system.

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In this section:

£11.2bn

£2.1bn

13x

Find out more about our market systems approach

How is the market size calculated?

Who are the contributors?

Social and affordable housing

Social lending

Impact venture

Social outcomes contracts