Nike, Adidas are “most prominent” footwear brands in UK – search data

Niche trainer brands are certainly getting their foot-in-the-door moments, but the big guns, Nike and Adidas, are still going to take some beating.

With 1.5 million monthly brand searches, Nike’s the most prominent brand in the UK footwear sector for 2025, followed by its fierce rival Adidas, according to a new report by Salience Search Marketing.

Nike has been the most prominent brand within the UK footwear sector over the past 12 months, based on online prominence and visibility.

Analysing “11 crucial performance indicators”, also including search volume trends and brand awareness, for footwear companies, to reveal the industry’s most successful names. 

Nike had over 1.5 million monthly brand searches and an owned social score of 383,100. Overall, the brand has over 343 million combined followers across Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

Not far behind with an average monthly search score of 823,000, Adidas ranks second and also records an owned social score of 117,750, “highlighting a great social strategy and a high following count”.

Converse is placed third with 360,000 monthly searches. And with a claimed 58 million+ followers, the brand “capitalises on an impressive social strategy to maintain brand awareness”.

Fourth, JD Sports comes onto the scene with the major high-street/digital retailer recording an impressive 2.74 million searches each month. Meanwhile, major high street rival Sports Direct, records a huge 4.09 million searches and boasts an owned social score of 5,314.

Skateboarding/streetwear brand Vans averages 301,000 monthly searches and boasts over 36 million combined social media followers, yielding an owned social score of 55,750. And New Balance has an owned social score of 27,461 and receives an average of 550,000 searches each month.

Crocs also remains a prominent name with 673,000 searches each month and an owned social score of 15,675, with almost eight million followers across all three social media channels.

Puma, meanwhile, receives 165,000 searches and has an owned social score of 59,850, making it the ninth most prominent name in the industry.

Finally, rounding off the top 10 is Under Armour, boasting 246,000 monthly searches and an owned social score of 31,719. In total, the brand has over 20 million followers on social media.

Salience Search Marketing MD Brett Janes, said:  “In such a competitive sector such as the footwear industry, maintaining prominence through healthy social media followings and search volume is crucial for further growth.

“Overall, it’ll be intriguing to see how these figures fluctuate over the next 12 months as brands continue to amend and reposition their strategies to boost prominence.”