Britain has one of the highest proportion of female followers of streamers, YouTubers and gaming influencers in the world, according to a new ‘Game-changers’ report by YouGov.
In Britain, 64% of gaming influencer followers are male, and 36% are female.
This data covers the British Isles England, Wales and Scotland, and doesn’t include Ireland or Northern Ireland.
Overall, on average across the world, 69% of followers of gaming influencers are male, and 31% are female. In terms of all markets (including sports, travel and lifestyle), the viewer split is 47% male to 53% female on average.
“Whilst gaming influencer followers skew heavily male, we do see some variations in the gender balance by market,” the report stated.
“The countries with the highest proportion of female followers of gaming influencers include France (38%) and Singapore (37%); in Great Britain, US, and China, 36% of gaming influencer followers are female.”
For comparison, countries with a less even viewer gender split include Denmark (78% male and 22% female), Poland and Germany (both 76% male and 24% female).
The report added: “Whilst three in ten game influencer followers globally are female, it’s worth noting that currently the top game streaming personalities skew overwhelmingly male.
“In fact, in Q3 2021, 95 of the top 100 live streaming channels on Twitch and YouTube were owned by male streamers, with only 3% of hours watched across top influencers contributed by females. This disparity between the proportion of female influencers vs. male followers presents a major opportunity for the industry to attract and support more female gaming personalities.”
Elsewhere in the report, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch were highlighted as the three most popular platforms used by followers of gaming influencers in Britain. 85% of followers use YouTube, 54% use Instagram and 47% use Twitch to keep up to date with their favourite influencers.
In terms of the report’s methodology, results came from a recent global Custom survey on the global influencer sector (specifically in gaming), covering 17 global markets and nearly 19,000 respondents.
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
