Market analyst predicts social networking growth

Those working in office-based accountancy jobs may find they have almost triple the temptation to check their Facebook profile at work in the future.

According to new research, almost half of UK residents will belong to a social networking site by 2012 - nearly tripling the current number of users from 9.6 million to 27.1 million, the Telegraph reports.

Discussing the continued popularity of social networking sites in the UK, analyst for Datamonitor Matthew Taylor told the newspaper: "Myspace and Facebook started in English and that has played a big part in it."

Datamonitor's researched showed that the UK has the highest number of social network site users in Europe, while France is second with 8.9 million and Germany third with 8.6 million.

However, despite confident predictions of Facebook's continuing rise, the online network recorded its first drop in membership between December 2007 and January 2008, falling five per cent from 8.9 million UK users to 8.5 million.