U.S. Market Research Industry: Scale, Growth & Talent
Survey Cash Club Research Desk
May 18, 2026
The U.S. market research industry reached $36.8B in 2025, with 7% analyst job growth projected through 2034. Learn how brands recruit high-value research participants.
# The U.S. Market Research Industry: Scale, Growth & Talent
The U.S. market research industry reached $36.8 billion in 2025, representing a critical pillar of corporate decision-making. Understanding this market's trajectory and how brands identify high-value research participants is essential for anyone operating in the insights space.
Market Size and Growth Trajectory
The market is projected to reach $37.7 billion in 2026, with growth of 3.0% in 2025. On a global scale, the U.S. holds 55% of total market research market share, underscoring American dominance in data-driven business culture.
The broader insights and analytics sector shows stronger momentum. Overall U.S. revenue grew 7.6% to around $82.9 billion, according to the latest Insights Association report. This growth reflects rapid transformation from traditional research to research tech and digital solutions, with AI becoming an operational staple and renewed focus on data quality.
Employment and Industry Outlook
The field is expanding professionally. Employment of market research analysts is projected to grow 7 percent from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average for all occupations. About 87,200 openings for market research analysts are projected each year, on average, over the decade.
Employment growth is expected to be driven by an increasing use of data and market research across many industries.
How Brands Recruit High-Value Participants
Participant recruitment is foundational to research quality. Brands work with their research partners to set parameters for market research recruitment – things like annual income of household/firm, buyer motivations, challenges, pain points, etc.
Strategic Recruitment Methods
Specialized recruitment firms use a strategic blend of methods including targeted digital outreach (such as social media advertising and desk research), community referrals, and engaged opt-in networks.
Enlisting services of organizations with connections to relevant markets is a tried-and-true tactic, with firms dedicating time to recruiting participants among groups likely to have valuable insights, creating pools of high-quality respondents.
Screening and Qualification
Finding high-quality respondents involves using screeners – a practice that involves asking questions before formal data collection to ensure the participant is a good fit for the study.
A screener is a logical series of questions to determine whether someone is suitable to take part in a market research study and, if so, which segment or segments they belong to.
Incentive Strategy
Rewards and incentives drive participation; when there's a meaningful reward, participants feel their time is valued and respected and are more likely to give their attention.
When setting up a market research program, it's important to provide appropriate levels of rewards depending on the length of the study, the value of the participants' time and the value to the client themselves – for example, rewards for a luxury brand seeking high net worth individuals differ from those for a mainstream brand.
Retention and Engagement
Best practices include clear communication about time commitments and expectations, timely reminders via email, SMS, or phone calls, strategic over-recruitment to account for no-shows, and building relationships with participants so they feel valued.
The Digital Shift
Online surveys rank as the most used quantitative method among market research professionals with 85% of respondents saying they use this method regularly.
In the U.S. specifically, 51.5% of survey responses came from mobile versus 47.3% non-mobile in Q3 2024, marking the first time mobile overtook desktop in American survey responses.
AI's Transformative Role
83% of professionals plan to invest in AI for research in 2025, with 47% already using it regularly. AI enables synthetic data generation (adopted by 69% of researchers), automates analysis to deliver insights in days rather than months, and powers AI-moderated interviews that generate 4.5x more insightful responses than traditional surveys.
Sources
[IBISWorld - Market Research Industry Size & Growth](https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-size/market-research/1442/)
[U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - Market Research Analysts Outlook](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/market-research-analysts.htm)
[Alchemic - Market Research Statistics 2026](https://thealchemic.com/blog/market-research-statistics/)
[Backlinko - Market Research Statistics 2026](https://backlinko.com/market-research-statistics)
[Insights Association - U.S. Insights & Analytics Market Report](https://www.insightsassociation.org/Resources/Insights-Analytics-Market-Report)
[Drive Research - Recruiting Participants for Qualitative Research](https://www.driveresearch.com/market-research-company-blog/ultimate-guide-to-recruiting-participants-for-qualitative-research/)
[ESR Research - High-Quality Participant Recruitment](https://esr-research.com/why-high-quality-participant-recruitment-is-the-key-to-reliable-market-research/)
[Angelfish Fieldwork - Research Participant Recruitment](https://angelfishfieldwork.com/research-participant-recruitment/)
[Tremendous - Market Research Recruitment & Retention](https://www.tremendous.com/blog/market-research-what-it-is-and-how-to-recruit-retain-better-participants/)
