An online services marketplace has revealed that UK pet owners spend a total of £57 billion on their pets every year, excluding food and medical costs.
Data from Bark.com has revealed that on average a UK pet owner spends £3,304.12 on dog walking, training, pet sitting and grooming every year.
Around 17 million people in the UK are believed to own a dog, with the average salary in the UK being £27,271 per year. It works out that on average UK pet owners spend 12.11% of their salaries on these services every year.
On average, pet owners spend £2,702.40 on dog walking, £273.28 on grooming their dogs, £328.44 on pet sitting and £594 on dog training.
The data from Bark.com also revealed that prices of pet services tend to differ depending on location, with dog walking the most expensive in London at £13.32 an hour and Wales being the cheapest at £10.19 an hour.
London was also revealed as the most expensive for pet sitting, with an average day costing £27.61, closely followed by the South West at £23.23 per day. The cheapest place for pet sitting in the UK is the North East at £19.08 per day.
For dog grooming, the South East is revealed as the most expensive for dog grooming, with an average cost of £38.60 and the cheapest being Wales again at £15 per session.
Kai Feller, co-founder of Bark.com, said: “Pet services are extremely popular on our site. There’s always a lot of traffic around the services, which shows just how much the country loves their dogs. It’s quite surprising when you see the percentage of the average salary that is spent on pet services, but this is also dependent on location and salary, so you might spend less or even more than the national average dog owner.”
