YouGov plc is a international Internet-based

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...

and data analytics firm headquartered in the UK with operations in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

, and Asia-Pacific.

History

2000–2010

Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim Zahawi formed YouGov in the United Kingdom in May 2000. In 2001, they engaged BBC political analyst Peter Kellner, who became chairman and then, from 2007 to 2016, President. In its initial years, YouGov hired a number a notable commentators to write columns on its website, including future UK

prime minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Boris Johnson, and presenter John Humphrys. In April 2005, YouGov became a public company listed on the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market, Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in opera ...

of the London Stock Exchange. In the same year, the company launched BrandIndex which tracks public opinion on consumer brands using daily polls. In 2006, YouGov began expanding outside the UK through acquisitions and acquired

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

-based research firm Siraj for $1.2 million plus an eventual earn out of $600,000. In 2007, the

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

-based US research polling firm Polimetrix, headed by

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

professor Doug Rivers, was acquired by the company for approximately $17 million . Also in 2007, the company acquired

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

n firm Zapera for $8 million and German firm Psychonomics for $20 million. In 2009 and 2010, YouGov expanded its US operations with two acquisitions; first buying

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

, research firm Clear Horizons for $600,000 plus an earn out of $2.7 million, then

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

-based research firm Harrison Group for $6 million with a $7 million earnout. In 2010, YouGov bought a 20% stake of sports media data company SMG Insight. In 2018, the company acquired the remaining 80% of SMG Insight's stock. The new business was rebranded YouGov Sport. Ahead of the 2010 UK General Election, YouGov entered an exclusive contract to provide political polls to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

''. The business also launched TellYouGov, which combined analysis drawing from social media data and polling results. The business continues to analyse social media, now primarily via YouGov Signal.

2011–2020

In 2011, YouGov acquired

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

-based firm Definitive Insights for $1 million with a potential $2 million earn out and also made its first organic expansion by opening an office in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. In January 2014, YouGov entered the Asia Pacific region with the acquisition of Decision Fuel for an estimated consideration of approximately £5 million. Also in 2014, YouGov launched Profiles, an audience segmentation tool, combining data points from its most active panellists showing how the public engages with traditional and new media channels. In 2016, Peter Kellner stepped down as the company’s Chairman. In this year, YouGov began to use a methodology known as multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) in its political polling. Its first public use was during the United Kingdom’s referendum on EU membership. YouGov has used this approach around elections since. In the 2017 UK General Election, YouGov’s projection was an outlier. While most pollsters projected large Conservative majorities, YouGov correctly predicted a hung parliament. YouGov modelling rightly projected a number of shock results, including in

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...

and

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

. In December 2017, YouGov purchased Galaxy Research to establish a presence in Australia. Galaxy Research was an Australian market research company that provided opinion polling for state and federal politics. Its polls were published in

News Limited News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp. The group's interests span newspaper and magazine publishing, Internet, market research, DVD and film distribution, and film and television pr ...

tabloid newspapers, including the ''

Herald Sun The ''Herald Sun'' is a Conservatism, conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the American Rupert Murdoch, Murd ...

'', '' Courier-Mail'', and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' (in contrast to Newspoll data, which is presented in the News Limited broadsheet newspaper ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...

''). In 2020, YouGov launched YouGov Turkey, the result of an acquisition of Istanbul-based online research agency Wizsight. The business also polled extensively around the Coronavirus pandemic, working with Imperial College London to track how populations responded to the virus and associated policies.

2021–present

In 2021, the company completed acquisitions of Canada-based Charlton Insights, Swiss-based LINK Marketing Services AG, and Australia-headquartered Faster Horses. Other acquisitions in 2021 included Lean App which was bought to improve YouGov’s services with financial transaction data, and Rezonence which offers users access to premium content in exchange for taking part in a survey. The business also launched YouGov Safe, giving insight into consumer online behaviour by encouraging consumers to share their data in a GDPR-friendly manner. In July 2023, YouGov agreed to acquire the consumer panel division of German market research company GfK for €315 million. The next month, YouGov chairman Shakespeare said the company was considering either moving its listing in the UK to the US, or establishing a secondary listing in the US. "I think the markets are better at supporting companies like ours there," he said in an interview with the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

''. The company later clarified that it was “not being considered in the near term.” In January 2024, YouGov concluded the acquisition of GfK’s consumer panel, and also acquired Chicago-based data company KnowledgeHound in a separate deal. In August 2024, YouGov acquired New Zealand-based generative AI company Yabble for £4.5 million.

Description and governance

Stephan Shakespeare is YouGov’s Chief Executive Officer, replacing Steve Hatch in February 2025. Shakespeare had previously been the company’s CEO between 2010 and 2023 before becoming YouGov’s Non-Executive Chair. Since Peter Kellner's retirement from the company in 2016, its methodology has been overseen by YouGov’s chief scientist, Doug Rivers. YouGov is a member of the British Polling Council.

Methodology

YouGov specialises in market research and opinion polling through online methods. The company's methodology involves obtaining responses from an invited group of Internet users, and then weighting these responses in line with

demographic Demography () is the statistics, statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analy ...

information. It draws these demographically representative samples from a panel of over 24 million people worldwide. YouGov's polling results have been found to be notably more accurate than those of other online pollsters that rely on nonprobability sampling instead of random sampling.

Allegations of poll manipulation

In June 2022, former employee and then future MP Chris Curtis, who at that time worked for competitor Opinium, said that during the

2017 United Kingdom general election The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the 2015 United Kingdom general election, previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 United Kingdom general election, 1992 to be held ...

, a YouGov poll was suppressed by the company because it was "too positive about Labour", under pressure from the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

co-founder of YouGov Nadhim Zahawi. YouGov denied that the poll was spiked for political reasons, instead arguing that the poll was based on a "skewed sample". Former YouGov president Peter Kellner confirmed last-minute small methodology changes which transferred 2% from Labour to

and increased the predicted Conservative lead from 3% to 7%. A day later, Curtis withdrew his allegations, saying that he now accepted "YouGov's position that in fact the results were pulled because of concerns other members of the team had about the methodology", and that he had not intended to allege that Nadhim Zahawi had had any bearing on the decision, and apologised for any confusion caused by his previous statements.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yougov 2000 establishments in the United Kingdom 2007 mergers and acquisitions 2017 mergers and acquisitions British companies established in 2000 Companies based in London Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange Market research companies of the United Kingdom Online research methods Opinion polling in Australia Polling organisations in the United Kingdom Public opinion research companies Service companies of the United Kingdom