What the research actually says about British sex work

11 August 2026

The largest UK survey of internet-based sex workers found a part-time, independent, and heavily harassed workforce. Very little of it matches the public picture.

Beyond the Gaze was an ESRC-funded research project running from 2016 to 2018, led by the University of Leicester and the University of Strathclyde. It surveyed 641 sex workers, interviewed 62 of them, and separately surveyed 1,323 customers, 56 police representatives and 49 support projects. It remains the largest study of its kind in the United Kingdom and almost nothing in it matches the picture the public carries around.

Most of it is part-time

Fifty-four per cent of respondents worked ten hours a week or less providing services. Just over half earned under £20,000 a year, and only one in ten earned £50,000 or more. Nearly three quarters worked independently rather than for an agency or a manager.

That is a picture of supplementary self-employed income, not of an industry. It is also the strongest available argument against treating escorting as a route out of a job.

The crime is mostly digital

Eighty-one per cent had experienced at least one crime in the previous five years. The ranking is the interesting part:

• Unwanted online contact or harassment: 65.1 per cent
• Threatening communications: 56.2 per cent
• Non-payment: 53.8 per cent
• Verbal abuse: 49.1 per cent
• Sexual assault: 22.2 per cent
• Physical assault: 15.6 per cent

Physical violence is real and it is the least common category. The everyday experience of the work is harassment through a phone, and the defences against that are different from the ones people imagine.

Almost nobody reports

Of those who had experienced a crime, 23 per cent had ever reported it to the police. Fewer than half of those who did were satisfied with how it was handled, and 39 per cent said they were unlikely to report again. That gap is the reason third-party reporting schemes such as National Ugly Mugs exist, and it is why an incident reported to one of them still produces a warning that reaches other workers.

What people actually do about it

The survey also asked about safety strategies, and the answers are unglamorous and effective: 91.5 per cent used a pseudonym, 87.6 per cent kept work and personal profiles separate, 85 per cent screened potential clients, 80.7 per cent used peer support networks and 64.2 per cent avoided drugs and alcohol while working.

Every one of those is available to anyone starting tomorrow and costs nothing. They are set out on screening and personal safety.