U.S. Market Research: Scale, Growth & Participant Recruitment
The U.S. market research industry reached $36.8B in 2025, dominating 55% of global market share. Learn how brands recruit high-value participants.
# U.S. Market Research: Scale, Growth & Participant Recruitment
The U.S. market research industry reached $36.8 billion in 2025, representing a critical pillar of corporate decision-making.
Industry Size & Market Dominance
The U.S. holds 55% of total market research market share—a dominance that reflects both the size of the American economy and the sophistication of its data-driven business culture. The market is projected to reach $37.7 billion in 2026, with growth at a 3.0% CAGR between 2020 and 2025.
There are 46,569 businesses in the U.S. market research industry, which has grown at a CAGR of 2.1% between 2021 and 2026. However, the top 50 companies generate about 60% of industry revenue, indicating significant market concentration among established players.
Growth Drivers & Employment Expansion
Employment of market research analysts is projected to grow 7 percent from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average for all occupations. Market research companies employ approximately 129,000 people in the U.S. as of 2023.
A 6.6% surge in corporate profit over the past five years enabled businesses to outsource more of their research operations to professional market researchers. The digital shift has further transformed the landscape, with companies pioneering new research tools to tap into the vast potential of big data to enhance accessibility and participation.
How Brands Recruit High-Value Participants
Recruiting quality respondents is foundational to research reliability. Firms at various points in the research value chain dedicate time to recruiting participants for research among groups that are likely to have valuable insights, creating pools of high-quality respondents that are ready to go as soon as a brand has its research questions.
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. Defining this at the outset paves the way for proper research participant selection and for making sure that the pool of participants only includes high-quality respondents.