UK game studios shift toward PC and console as mobile loses ground

PC has become the clearest anchor for UK game studios, and mobile is no longer the easy growth lane it once was. TIGA’s latest figures show 46 percent of studios naming PC as their main platform, while the share working on mobile fell from 33 percent to 31.6 percent. Mobile’s share of total industry jobs also slipped, from 19 percent to 17.9 percent, even as console’s share of jobs rose from 47.2 percent to 50 percent.

That shift matters because it points to the kinds of games British studios are most likely to ship in the next few years. The data suggests more premium PC and console projects, more studio strategies built around larger productions, and less confidence in mobile as a default path. Even console-focused studios saw headcount fall by 2.1 percent, but the platform still held more of the industry’s employment base, which underlines how resilient that part of the market remains compared with mobile.

The platform mix is changing in the middle of a broader contraction. TIGA said UK development employment fell from 28,516 in May 2024 to 27,347 in September 2025. During that period, 491 companies cut 3,655 full-time roles, while 513 growing studios added 2,751 jobs. The UK had 2,110 studios, down from a peak of 2,175 in 2023, and the freelance workforce rose to more than 4,245 contractors. TIGA said full-time roles fell 4.5 percent and described the downturn as the most severe on record, with start-up activity at a 15-year low.

Richard Wilson used the figures to warn that the sector is shrinking after years of growth and could lose thousands of skilled jobs without policy action. That warning lands at a moment when the public and private signals are pulling in different directions. Ukie said the UK games market reached £8.76 billion in 2025, with software sales at £6.03 billion, digital console sales at £2.49 billion, mobile spend at £2.067 billion and digital PC software at £1.15 billion. The money is still there, but the development pipeline is getting more concentrated in the parts of the market tied to bigger teams and higher production values.

Policy is being pushed into that conversation too. On April 13, 2026, the UK government announced a £30 million Games Growth Package, including £28.5 million for the UK Games Fund and £1.5 million for the London Games Festival over the next three years. The UK Games Fund support includes grants of up to £100,000 for prototyping and up to £250,000 for expansion, with applications due to open on April 14, 2026. HM Revenue & Customs updated its guidance on Video Games Expenditure Credits on February 19, 2026, setting out that eligible games must be British-certified, intended for the general public and have at least 10 percent of core costs spent on UK activities. With London Games Festival 2026 running from April 13 to April 19, the UK industry is entering a period where support, scale and platform choice are increasingly tied together.