The Council’s advocacy work focuses on ensuring the industry that employs over 612,000 people and is a vibrant part of the high streets and communities, underpinning careers and entrepreneurship nationwide, is properly recognised for its economic, social and cultural contribution to the UK.

Partnering with The  APPG for Beauty, Hair & Wellbeing

The Council first worked to establish industry representation through ministerial representation and the creation of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Beauty, Hair & Wellbeing. This is a cross-party forum of MPs and Peers (chaired by Carolyn Harris MP) that investigates issues impacting the sector. The British Beauty Council serves as the Secretariat for the APPG.

Through this group, the BBCo facilitates direct dialogue between industry leaders and policymakers, ensuring that government intervention or legislative decisions on everything from the cost of doing business to modern slavery or safety standards are informed by frontline expertise.

In its first order of business, the Council has supported the APPG to launch the UV Safety Inquiry and publish the first parliamentary report in May 2026, with recommendations for a national UV safety strategy.

Policy Focus

The Council also works with departments across government to input on policy in four key areas.

Business and Trade

Primarily this involves engagement with the Department for Business and Trade, HM Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions. The Council works to gather key data from industry on the impact of policy decisions on businesses, to build  constructive and evidence-based proposals for improvements. Also, keeping both government and industry abreast of import or export challenges, free trade agreements and tariff changes. This has led to policy wins such as securing the closure of the £135 low-value import tax loophole to protect UK businesses.

Regulation and Safety

We work to ensure the professionalisation of the beauty industry and to safeguard the public. The Council lobbies for legislative change where we feel non-mandatory intervention does not go far enough to safeguard consumers and ensure the reputation of the industry. For example our recent work on aesthetic regulation (link to new Aesthetics Explainer) and securing a ban on fillers and Botox for under-18s.  To secure regulatory change, we work with multiple departments including the Department for Health and Social Care, the Department for Business and Trade, the Home Office, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Social Impact and Environmental Responsibility

Understanding the beauty industry’s positive social impact is an important part of recognising the sector’s overall value. We commission reports around health and wellbeing, diversity, equity and inclusion and positive environmental change to educate policymakers and feed into government initiatives and policy ambitions in these areas.

Education and Skills

The future of the beauty industry depends on a robust future workforce and pool of talent, only made possible by fit-for-purpose apprenticeships, further education and continued professional development.

The Council has worked with No10 and No11 on the development and rollout of careers advice and industry promotion programmes such as Future Talent (link to Future Talent). We also engage with Skills England, formally the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education and the Department for Education, inputting on consultations and calls for evidence that go on to form policy such as the ‘Youth Guarantee’.

We see engagement with the Department for Business and Trade as essential to ensuring education and training meet the needs of business. We work closely with government to improve the Growth & Skills Levy, improve educational course content and ensure maximum value for employers and learners.

Defining the Industry’s Economic Impact

One of the Council’s first actions at inception was to define and value the UK Beauty Industry, producing the first Value of Beauty report in 2019. By repeatedly commissioning this rigorous economic analysis with Oxford Economics, the Council has established the Value of Beauty (link to latest 2026 edition of Value of Beauty report) as a Treasury-recognised economic metric for the industry, providing the data required to justify targeted investment, specific support and policy interventions. Such economic analysis was vital during the COVID pandemic, and enabled the Council to secure £500m in support for salons and supply-chain brands.

The Council also worked with government over the last seven years to secure an update to the UK and international Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes (link to article A landmark moment for our industry: new SIC codes for hair, beauty and spa are announced) to enable the beauty, hair and spa sectors to be accurately and individually tracked.