Circana Insight

Everything to play for

Games & Puzzles is one of the largest supercategories in the UK toy market, and Rory looks at which subclasses within the sector are delivering a strong performances this year.

The Games and Puzzles supercategory is the fourth largest supercategory in the UK toy market in 2025, which put it in the same position as it was at this stage in 2024 and 2023. It is the top performing supercategory in 2025, with a trend of +38% vs. the same period in 2024. Within the overall supercategory there are different trends for the various subclasses: core Games is flat, Trading Cards is up +100% and Puzzles has a trend of -6%. Trading Cards is the clear growth driver this year, with Pokémon sales having a large impact.

Strategic Trading Cards is the largest subclass and makes up just over 50% of value in the supercategory, with the strong growth this year meaning this share is 16 percentage points higher than in 2024. The top performing subclasses in Games this year are Travel Games, Adult Games and Card Games, though Family Board/Action Games is the largest in value size and worth around 19% of all Games value. The growth within Travel Games is being driven by Connect 4 and Uno, with this category having a particularly good July as the schools finished up for the summer and families headed off on holiday. The growth in Adult Games is being helped by new items adding value, like Scream: The Game from Funko and The Chameleon Game from Big Potato, both of which appear in the top items list this year. Card Games had a strong July, and possibly benefited from the summer holidays starting, with Uno and Dobble both showing a strong positive trend in the month of July. So far this year, Uno has taken the top two spots and Uno Show Em No Mercy is enjoying sales well ahead of this stage last year. Family Board/Action Games is the largest subclass and has also seen a +1% growth this year, with Monopoly and Jenga from Hasbro taking the top two spots. The Traitors Board Game from Vivid Goliath is the No. 3 item and continues its strong performance from 2024.

In Puzzles, the overall category is -6% this year, which is behind the overall trend for total toys. There is a similar trend across all the subclasses with Adult Puzzles at -7%, Children’s Puzzles at -5% and 3D Puzzles at -4%. But the Puzzles category has seen an improving trend in the last couple of months with June flat and July seeing a positive trend of +3%. Licensing accounts for around 40% of the overall value of the segment, and the top three licences in Puzzles are Lilo & Stitch, Pokémon and Bluey, with Lilo & Stitch the strongest performer for value gain followed by Sonic the Hedgehog and Disney Moana. The Portapuzzle De Luxe 1000 from Jumbo is the top item in Puzzles followed by the Bluey 4 In A Box Puzzle Set and the 3D Puzzle Lilo And Stitch 72 Pieces, both from Ravensburger.

Overall, the Games & Puzzles trend is the strongest category trend in toys, adding nearly £43m to the UK toy market so far in 2025. This is heavily weighted towards Strategic Trading Cards but there are still good performances from Games subclasses like Card Games and Adult Games. With the all-important festive season still to come, this may well push the current trends in Puzzles into positive ones.