UK consumers are forecast to spend an extra £285.8million over Black Friday weekend this year, as appetite for the sales event skyrockets, new forecasts from VoucherCodes.co.uk reveal.

Its data suggests shoppers will spend £9.80billion over the four-day Black Friday weekend (up +3% year-on-year), in a bid to save on both everyday items and Christmas gifts.

On Black Friday itself, retail sales are expected to hit £3.41billion – a +1.5% increase on the £3.36billion spent last year. However, the day is expected to be outperformed by Cyber Monday, which is forecast to deliver £3.53billion in sales, up +4.2% year-on-year.

Looking across the wider Black Friday fortnight, spending is set to reach £25.18billion (+2.0% versus 2025) over the two weeks leading up to Cyber Monday, with many of the sales spanning the whole month of November.

Online gets the lion’s share of Golden Quarter sales

Online retailers will get the lion’s share of sales this Black Friday, according to VoucherCodes, with spending tipped to hit £5.29billion over the BFCM weekend (+3.3% YoY).

Physical retailers are also expected to see a substantial uptick, with sales growing +2.7% year-on-year to £4.41billion, highlighting a demand for both in-store and online shopping experiences.

“Black Friday is no longer just about driving impulse purchases, it’s a strategic budgeting tool for consumers navigating both everyday and Christmas costs,” Moji Oshisanya, CCO at VoucherCodes.co.uk, commented. “This year, Black Friday purchases will be carefully considered and budgeted for, no matter what the driver is behind the purchase.”

Discount dependency

The rise in consumer spending is driven by a surge in appetite for the Black Friday discounts, it said. This year 45% of all UK consumers are expected to shop over BFCM (versus 40% last year), with two-fifths saying they expect to spend more than they did in 2025 (39%).

Since last year’s event, there’s been a shift in sentiment towards Black Friday. Where only 35% of people saw the sales as a great way to make a saving last year, now almost two-thirds view the sales this way (63%). There’s also been a sharp increase in the number of consumers who base their festive shopping around the sales – doubling from 9% to 18%.

This follows separate research from invent.ai which shows that six in ten (60%) shoppers believe that full-price shopping will become less common in the future, with promotional events like BFCM and AI fuelling the rise in discounting demands.