UK Boxing Day footfall hits decade high, up 4.4%

If you saw busy streets on 26 December, you weren’t imagining it. Data from MRI Software shows UK Boxing Day footfall rose 4.4% on last year - the strongest increase in more than a decade. Good news for activity, yes, but it doesn’t automatically mean tills were ringing faster. We’ll unpack the difference and why the evening mattered most.

First, a vocabulary check you can use in class or at work. Footfall counts visits into places like high streets, shopping centres and retail parks. It measures how many times people walk in - not how much they spend and not unique individuals. Shops and landlords use it to plan staffing and opening hours. Payment data and official sales figures tell us about money actually spent. Both sets of numbers are useful, but they answer different questions. MRI collects its counts via camera-based systems across hundreds of UK sites.

The day itself started quietly. Around lunchtime on 26 December 2025, high streets and shopping centres were still down on last year, while retail parks were ahead. By 1pm, MRI reported retail parks up 6.9% year on year, with high streets and centres in negative territory - an early sign that shoppers were timing trips differently.

Then came the late dash. Visits accelerated after 5pm, and from 5pm to 11pm footfall averaged a 9.6% rise versus last year - more than triple the 3.1% uplift recorded between 6am and 5pm. That late surge flipped the day’s story from “muted” to “strong”.

Across the full day, MRI’s read shows different places benefited in different ways: retail parks led with an 8.8% jump, high streets rose 3.6%, and shopping centres were up 2.1%. MRI says it monitors more than 660 destinations nationwide, giving a broad view across towns and cities.

What about spending? Barclays expects shoppers to have spent £3.6bn in this year’s Boxing Day sales, down from £4.6bn in 2024 - roughly £1bn less. Fewer people planned to take part (26% versus 28% last year), though those who did intended to spend slightly more on average (£253 versus £236). That’s why we say more people on the streets doesn’t always equal more money through the tills.

Timing and openings help explain the pattern. Some big names stayed shut on Boxing Day - for example, Marks & Spencer, Aldi and Lidl - while supermarkets and leisure venues drew visitors later in the day. MRI analysts also pointed to hospitality and festive attractions as likely winners from the evening wave. So a portion of that footfall may have been meals, films and ice rinks rather than fashion or tech.

Set this against the wider picture. The Office for National Statistics reported that seasonally adjusted retail sales volumes fell by 0.1% in November 2025. Because Black Friday was inside November this year, the ONS also notes a large 11.9% month‑on‑month rise in the raw (not seasonally adjusted) data - a reminder to read the labels on any chart you see.

Learning to read retail headlines helps. When you see “footfall up”, look for three extra clues: are people buying or browsing; what’s the average basket size; and how much shifted online. Card‑spend surveys and the ONS sales bulletin answer those money questions, while footfall shows where and when people chose to go out. Use both to get a fairer picture - the kind you can explain to a class or in a team meeting.

One more sign this isn’t just a one‑day blip: MRI’s weekend read showed footfall on Saturday 27 December up 1.6% year on year, and analysts expect momentum to carry into New Year shopping as families stock up and days out continue. We’ll be watching the January trading updates to see how much of that activity converts into sales.