"Men are wearing more jewelry than ever" is one of those claims that gets repeated in style coverage every year, almost always without a number attached to it. Two actual surveys — one in the UK, one in the US — put real figures behind it: how many men buy jewelry for themselves, what they buy, and where. The numbers below come from those two surveys plus one market-value estimate, each named and dated, not blended into a single implied statistic.
How Many Men Actually Buy Jewelry for Themselves
The clearest figure comes from a YouGov poll of 1,000 British men aged 18 and over, fielded online on 28 May 2025 and published 5 June 2025. Seventeen percent said they had bought jewelry for themselves in the past 12 months — not received as a gift, bought it themselves. That number isn't flat across age groups: it rises to 24% among Gen Z respondents and falls to 14% among Baby Boomers, with Millennials and Gen X both sitting at 17%, matching the overall average.
That generational gap is the most quietly significant number here. A YouGov figure of 24% for Gen Z against 14% for Boomers is a genuine 10-point spread, not noise — it's consistent with every other piece of coverage describing men's jewelry as a generational shift rather than an across-the-board trend. It's worth being precise about what this does and doesn't show: it's a one-country, one-point-in-time poll, not a longitudinal study, so it can't say whether that 17% is rising or falling year over year. Treat it as a credible snapshot, not a trend line.
What They're Actually Buying
Among the British men in the YouGov survey who had bought jewelry for themselves, necklaces or chains topped the list at 33%, just ahead of watches at 32%. Bracelets came in at 24%, fashion rings at 22%, earrings at 21%, cufflinks at 15%, and anklets at 5%.
A separate US survey, commissioned by sterling silver brand Luke Zion Jewelry and reported by trade publication JCK, asked 1,002 American men ages 18 to 75 (average age 41) a different question and got a broadly similar ranked list, in order: watches, wedding rings, chains or necklaces, bracelets, then non-wedding rings. It didn't publish exact percentages per item, so it can't be charted alongside the UK figures directly, but the overlap in what tops the list — watches and necklaces/chains dominating, bracelets and rings a tier below — holds across both countries and both survey methodologies.
How and Where Men Are Buying
The two surveys split on distribution in an interesting way. In the UK YouGov data, independent or local jewelers led at 39% of purchases, ahead of online marketplaces like Amazon or eBay at 30%, high street jewelers at 27%, brand websites at 18%, and department stores at 11%. Forty-seven percent of UK respondents said they buy mostly or entirely online, versus 35% who buy mostly in person.
The US figures from the JCK-reported survey lean more digital: 48% said they buy from a major jewelry retailer's website, 35% from independent retailers, 27% from department stores, 22% from chain jewelry stores, and 21% from independent online jewelers (the categories aren't mutually exclusive, so these also don't sum to 100%).
- UK (YouGov, n=1,000): independent/local jewelers lead purchases at 39%; 47% buy mostly or entirely online.
- US (Luke Zion Jewelry survey via JCK, n=1,002): major online retailers lead at 48%; independent retailers follow at 35%.
Read together, both markets show the same underlying pattern even with different question wording: independent and local sellers still hold a meaningful share of men's jewelry purchases, but a large online component — whether marketplaces in the UK or branded retail sites in the US — now sits alongside it rather than behind it.
What's Actually Influencing the Purchase
Among UK buyers, price and discounts were the single biggest factor in a purchase decision at 39%, well ahead of brand reputation (20%), product reviews (17%), in-store promotions (15%), influencers (8%) and celebrities (1%). The US survey measured something closer to sentiment than purchase drivers: 78% of respondents agreed that men's jewelry is "getting more and more mainstream," and 40% said they admire men who wear it. Neither of those figures proves rising sales on its own — they describe attitude, not spending — but they're consistent with the purchase data showing real activity across every generation surveyed, Gen Z most of all.
What the Market-Size Numbers Show (and Where They're Thin)
Separately from both surveys, Euromonitor data reported by Vogue Business and republished by The Week put the global men's luxury jewelry market at roughly $7.3 billion in 2023, growing 7.3% year over year — outpacing the 4.6% growth Euromonitor recorded for the women's luxury jewelry market that same year. That figure is specifically the luxury segment, not the broader men's jewelry category as a whole, and it's a 2023 data point rather than a current one; no comparably sourced 2026 market-size figure turned up in researching this piece, so treat any "men's jewelry market will hit $X billion by 2026" claim circulating elsewhere with real skepticism unless it names its source.
What This Means If You're Buying
The honest summary: somewhere around one in six men in the UK bought jewelry for themselves in the past year, nearly one in four among Gen Z specifically, and watches and chains/necklaces are what most of them reached for first. If you're picking a first piece, both surveys point the same direction — a chain or a watch is the safest, most-chosen category, while rings and earrings are a smaller but still real slice of what men are actually wearing. For something personal rather than off-the-shelf, a men's engraved bracelet or a men's leather bracelet sits in exactly the bracelet category both surveys measured, and FARUZO's personalized men's jewelry collection covers that range directly.
For symbolism rather than survey data, see what a signet ring or a pinky ring is actually said to signal — both are among the smaller categories in the purchase data above, but neither is a niche choice; they're simply outnumbered by chains and watches.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of men buy jewelry for themselves?
In the UK, 17% of men surveyed by YouGov in 2025 said they'd bought jewelry for themselves in the past 12 months, rising to 24% among Gen Z and falling to 14% among Baby Boomers. No equivalent US percentage was found; the US survey reported attitudes and a ranked list of popular items instead of a single purchase-rate figure.
What jewelry do men buy most?
Across both the UK and US surveys, watches and necklaces/chains topped the list, with bracelets and rings a clear step behind. The UK data gives exact percentages: necklaces/chains 33%, watches 32%, bracelets 24%, fashion rings 22%.
Do men buy jewelry online or in stores?
Both — but the split differs by market. In the UK, 47% buy mostly or entirely online; independent and local jewelers still lead by channel at 39% of purchases. In the US, 48% buy from a major retailer's website, with independent retailers at 35%.
Is the men's jewelry market actually growing?
The clearest number available is Euromonitor's 2023 figure: the global men's luxury jewelry market grew 7.3% that year, versus 4.6% for women's luxury jewelry. That's one year of luxury-segment data, not a confirmed multi-year trend for the category as a whole, and no verified 2026 market-size figure is publicly available as of this writing.
Which generation of men buys the most jewelry?
Gen Z, by a clear margin in the UK data — 24% had bought jewelry for themselves in the past year, against 17% for Millennials and Gen X and 14% for Baby Boomers.
