Most retail calendars tell you when each date falls. For a campaign, the more useful question is when people start searching. So for every big retail moment of 2027 in the UK, we looked at five years of Google searches (2021–2025): when interest starts to climb, when it peaks, and how much of it comes before the day. We also went through the ONS figures on how much of British retail happens online, month by month.
The 2027 UK calendar at a glance
| Moment | 2027 date | Searches pass half of the peak (2027) | Peak (2027) | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valentine’s Day | Sun 14 Feb | 29 January – 3 February | 7–12 February | 95–98% of searches come before the day |
| Mothering Sunday | Sun 7 Mar | 21–27 February | 27 February – 2 March | Always three weeks before Easter Sunday |
| Good Friday, Easter Monday | Fri 26 Mar, Mon 29 Mar | — | — | Bank holidays (Easter Monday not in Scotland) |
| Easter (eggs) | Sun 28 Mar | 11–16 March | 22–28 March | About 90% of searches come before Easter Sunday |
| Early May bank holiday | Mon 3 May | — | — | |
| Spring bank holiday | Mon 31 May | — | — | |
| Father’s Day | Sun 20 Jun | 8–13 June | 14–15 June | 96–97% of searches come before the day |
| Back to school (uniform, shoes) | Varies by area | 2–28 July | 26 August – 4 September | Above a quarter of the peak from mid-April |
| Summer bank holiday | Mon 30 Aug | — | — | Scotland: Mon 2 Aug |
| Halloween (costumes) | Sun 31 Oct | 1–5 October | 23–31 October | 94–97% of searches come before the day |
| Black Friday | Fri 26 Nov | About a week before (18–19 November) | On the day | About 8% of the season’s searches fall on the day (2025) |
| Cyber Monday | Mon 29 Nov | — | — | About 1/55 of Black Friday’s search interest (2025) |
| Christmas (gifts) | Sat 25 Dec | 6–17 November | 4–11 December | 98% of searches come before Christmas Day |
| Boxing Day sales | Sun 26 Dec | — | On the day | 38–44% of searches come before it |
| Christmas bank holidays | Mon 27 Dec, Tue 28 Dec | — | — | Christmas Day and Boxing Day fall on a weekend |
| January sales | Sat 1 Jan 2028 | — | On the day | 38–49% of searches come before it |
The 2027 windows come from applying the ranges we measured in 2021–2025 to the 2027 dates. They are an estimate, not a Google forecast.
November is when online takes its biggest share
In 2025, internet sales were 27.5% of all retail sales in Great Britain. In November they reached 32.4%, the highest of the year, with December second at 29.6%.
November had the highest online share in 8 of the 10 years from 2016 to 2025. The two exceptions were January 2021, during lockdown, and January 2022, which beat November by just 0.2 points (30.1% against 29.9%).
A share is not the same thing as sales, though. In pounds, December’s online sales were higher than November’s in every year from 2008 to 2019 and again in 2024; November came out ahead in 2020–2023 and in 2025. So November is when online is strongest compared with total retail, and December is still a very big month in cash.
Valentine’s Day 2027: Sunday 14 February
Searches for Valentine’s gifts peak 2 to 7 days before the 14th, not on the day itself. They pass half of the peak 11–16 days before, so around 29 January – 3 February in 2027, and 95–98% of the interest comes before Valentine’s Day.
Mothering Sunday 2027: Sunday 7 March
Mothering Sunday is always three weeks before Easter Sunday, and in 2027 it is early. Gift searches peak 5 to 8 days before, which puts the peak between 27 February – 2 March. They pass half of the peak 8–14 days before (21–27 February), and 97–98% of the interest comes before the day.
Easter 2027: Sunday 28 March
Good Friday (26 March) is a bank holiday across the UK, and Easter Monday (29 March) everywhere except Scotland. Searches for Easter eggs pass half of their peak 12–17 days before Easter Sunday (11–16 March in 2027) and peak in the last week, 0–6 days before. About 90% of the interest comes before Easter Sunday.
Father’s Day 2027: Sunday 20 June
The pattern is close to Mothering Sunday’s. Gift searches peak 5 to 6 days before (14–15 June in 2027) and pass half of the peak 7–12 days before (8–13 June). 96–97% of the interest comes before the day.
Back to school
Searches for school uniform and school shoes peak around the start of September, between 6 days before and 3 days after 1 September in 2021–2025. They pass half of that peak 35–61 days before 1 September, so in July, and stay above a quarter of the peak from mid-April. Term dates are set locally and differ across the UK, so this is a UK-wide average. The summer bank holiday is on Monday 30 August in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and on Monday 2 August in Scotland.
Halloween 2027: Sunday 31 October
Costume searches pass half of their peak 26–30 days before, so 1–5 October in 2027, and peak in the last 8 days. 94–97% of the interest comes before 31 October.
Black Friday 2027: Friday 26 November
Searches for “black friday” peak on the day itself every year, but the day takes a smaller share every year: 13.4–13.5% of all the searches between 1 October and 15 December in 2021, 10.5–10.6% in 2022, 10.0% in 2023, 8.0–8.1% in 2024 and 7.6–7.9% in 2025 (the two pulls differ slightly). Around 80% of the interest now comes before the Friday (81–82% in 2024–2025, 75–78% in 2021–2023).
Interest passes a tenth of the peak around the turn of the month (29 October – 1 November in 2023–2025) and half of it about a week before (7–8 days in 2022–2025, so 18–19 November in 2027). The Saturday after keeps 30–44% of the Friday’s interest. And Cyber Monday (29 November) is a much smaller search: in 2025, “black friday” had about 55 times the interest of “cyber monday”.
Christmas 2027
Christmas gift searches start early. They are already at a tenth of their peak 94–105 days before Christmas (mid-September), pass a quarter of it 53–69 days before (17 October – 2 November in 2027), half of it 38–49 days before (6–17 November), and peak 14–21 days before, between 4–11 December. 98% of the interest comes before Christmas Day. Christmas Day and Boxing Day fall on a weekend in 2027, so the bank holidays move to Monday 27 December and Tuesday 28 December.
Boxing Day and January sales
Searches for Boxing Day sales peak on 26 December itself in every year, with 38–44% of the interest before it. Searches for January sales peak on 1 January, with 38–49% before. Both are searched on the day, so the ads need to be live and ready by then, not launched that morning.
Selling into Greece too?
Greek Orthodox Easter is on 2 May 2027, five weeks after UK Easter, and Greek Mother’s Day is on 9 May. The Greek e-commerce calendar 2027 has the Greek dates and when searches start there.
Planning 2027 for an online shop? Book a free 30-minute audit — we look at your account’s numbers and when each campaign needs to be ready.
Frequently asked questions
When is Mothering Sunday in 2027?
Sunday 7 March 2027. It is always three weeks before Easter Sunday, so it moves every year.
When is Easter 2027 in the UK?
Easter Sunday is 28 March 2027. Good Friday (26 March) is a bank holiday across the UK, and Easter Monday (29 March) everywhere except Scotland.
What are the bank holidays in England and Wales in 2027?
1 January, 26 March (Good Friday), 29 March (Easter Monday), 3 May, 31 May, 30 August, and 27 December and 28 December for Christmas and Boxing Day, which fall on a weekend.
When is Black Friday in 2027?
Friday 26 November 2027. Cyber Monday is on 29 November.
When is Father’s Day in the UK in 2027?
Sunday 20 June 2027, the third Sunday of June.
When do people in the UK start searching for Christmas gifts?
In 2021–2025, searches for Christmas gifts were already at a tenth of their peak 94–105 days before Christmas, passed half of the peak 38–49 days before (6–17 November in 2027) and peaked 14–21 days before (4–11 December).
Methodology
- Searches: Google Trends, United Kingdom, daily data. For each year 2021–2025 we took a window around the date and measured the first day above 10%, 25% and 50% of the peak, the peak day, and the share of interest before the day. Pulled on 1/11/2026, and again from scratch on 3/11/2026 as a check.
- Google Trends builds its figures from a sample of searches, so two pulls never return exactly the same numbers. Every range on this page holds for both pulls.
- Terms (each line searched as one combined term): valentines gifts, valentines day gifts, valentine gifts, valentines gift · mothers day gifts, mothers day gift, mother’s day gifts, mothers day presents · easter eggs · fathers day gifts, fathers day gift, father’s day gifts, fathers day presents · school uniform, school shoes · halloween costumes, halloween costume · christmas gifts, christmas presents, christmas gift ideas · boxing day sales, boxing day sale · january sales, january sale · black friday · cyber monday. These are shopping terms, so the peaks describe shopping searches, not greetings.
- Black Friday “season”: 1 October to 15 December of each year.
- Google Trends gives a relative index (0–100), not a number of searches or sales.
- Online share and online sales: Office for National Statistics, Retail Sales Index time series (dataset DRSI), series J4MC “Internet sales as a percentage of total retail sales” and JE2J “Internet retail sales, £ millions. All retailing”, release of 23 October 2026. They cover Great Britain, not Northern Ireland.
- Dates: bank holidays from gov.uk; Easter with the Gregorian computus; Mothering Sunday three weeks before Easter Sunday; Father’s Day on the third Sunday of June; Black Friday the day after the fourth Thursday of November.