Britain’s brands return to growth

UK brand value returned to growth in 2026, with the country’s leading brands adding £45.4 billion over the past year, according to new figures from Brand Finance. At the report launch, Mark Ritson asked the room to look harder at what really drives it.

The UK’s 250 most valuable brands grew by 12% to reach £448.9 billion in 2026, the first year-on-year growth since 2023. This is according to Brand Finance’s annual UK report published this month. Britain’s biggest brands added £45.4 billion in collective value over twelve months.

Growth was broad based, spread across the economy. Banking is now the UK’s most valuable sector, lifted in part by Revolut, the fastest-growing brand of the year at 246% to £5 billion, and a 24% rise in banking sector value overall. Aerospace and defence recorded its strongest gains since 2012, and consumer brands now account for eight of the UK’s ten strongest.

One finding drew particular attention. Brand Finance’s analysis shows the UK’s most trusted brands increased in value by 15% over the year, while the least trusted brands saw their value fall by 4%. Emotional responses to brands are difficult to quantify financially. This report shows that trust is directly associated with performance.

Can we trust trust?

Speaking at the launch, the marketing expert and Mini MBA founder Mark Ritson put a deceptively simple question to the room. Can we trust trust?

Drawing on examples ranging from Johnnie Walker to Betty Crocker, he examined how strong brands build emotional connections, and he questioned the assumption that trust alone drives growth. His argument placed salience, being the brand that comes to mind first, among the most powerful levers available to marketers. He left the audience with this question. Should brands focus on being trusted, or on being remembered?

Consistent and coherent

The answer is, of course, both. Trust and salience accumulate through the same discipline: consistent and coherent brand investment sustained over years. The brands climbing this year’s ranking are remembered because they are visible and distinctive. They are trusted because they behave consistently over time.

Shell, a brand Designhouse is proud to count among its clients, marks a decade as Britain’s most valuable brand. Its value rose 16% to £39.5 billion. Other clients, Vodafone,  and British Gas both saw their brand value rise, Centrica held its position in the ranking.

The cumulative value of the UK’s top 100 brands has grown 33% since 2016, through repeated periods of economic disruption. Automotive showed the reverse, with total sector brand value down 22% as Jaguar, Range Rover, Defender and Discovery all declined.

The JLR brands demonstrate the trust and salience point precisely. In 2025 Jaguar interrupted its own identity with a controversial rebrand, and at the same time a cyberattack interrupted JLR’s ability to supply, so the brand was neither reliably recognisable nor reliably present.

Brand value behaves as a financial asset. It responds to investment, to consistency, and to the trust and recognition a brand earns over time. Designhouse has spent 55 years helping clients build brands that endure through exactly these cycles. Whether the goal is to be trusted, remembered, or both, the route is the same. Strategy, applied consistently, takes shape as value.

written by Sam Steele, Marketing and Communications Director, FCIM