Advertising spend in the UK is set to grow 6.1% in 2019 to reach £22.2bn despite expectations of a turbulent year, according to the latest forecasts from Dentsu Aegis Network released today.

Brexit and GDPR concerns have "yet to manifest in falling advertiser confidence" and the UK is expected to continue leading globally on its share of digital spend, which is forecast to hit 64% this year after a growth of 10.9%.

Globally, adspend is predicted to grow 3.8% - taking total investment to US$625bn. Digital will grow 12% to pass 40% of global share for the first time.

Within digital, mobile continues to dominate growth and is expected to grow 19.2% globally in 2019, with video especially strong at 20%. Despite fraud and brand safety concerns, social media will also continue to demonstrate strong growth (18.4%).

Programmatic is to grow 19.2%, reflecting the wider adoption of the model across other media such as digital out of home (DOOH) and TV. DOOH will also drive healthy growth in the OOH sector, forecast to reach a 6.3% global share with a 4% growth.

Elsewhere, TV is to grow just 0.5% as it struggles to draw eyeballs away from ad-free online streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon, though the sector continues to innovate through new ad formats and attribution solutions.

Meanwhile, print media is expected to continue in decline; newspapers are forecast to fall -7.2% and magazines -7%.

“As the world transitions to a digital economy, advertising is at the leading edge of change," said Tim Andree, CEO and chairman of Dentsu Aegis Network.

"Digital connectedness - driven not only by advances in technology, but the speed of consumer adoption - has fundamentally changed the shape of our business and will continue to do so. Even where digital penetration is highest - such as the UK and China – the trend shows little sign of slowing down."

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