The UK’s Pink Pound has been revealed to be worth over £70 billion each year.

New Research reveals that Britain's 3 million gay and lesbian citizens earned this much income last year and appear to be spending much of it on a range of consumer expenditure categories.

Findings from the Out Now Diva and Gay Times Readers Surveys' shows that the UK’s lesbians and gay men, on average, are very well-employed, well-paid and are out spending their incomes on a range of lifestyle product categories.

"This is not necessarily news to us, as we have been working with companies to help them understand how to reach gay customers for over 15 years now," says Ian Johnson, who carried out the research.

"What is new, however, in the UK market, is that the value of gay consumers' expenditure on so many product categories can now be accurately measured. Importantly, these new figures include both gay men and lesbians.

"The gay market is big business," says Johnson.

Last month UK administration officials at Whitehall revealed the total number of gay and lesbian people in the UK is believed by the British government to be 6% of the total adult population, or 3 million people.

"Now that the market is able to be accurately measured, more companies are developing marketing plans to better position their brands to attract gay and lesbian customers," says Johnson.

"Benchmark UK brands such as Barclays Bank, British Telecom (BT), HMV and British Airways have all shown marketing interest in targeting the spending power of the gay and lesbian community.

The research reveals that last year UK gays and lesbians spent more than £800 million buying CDs, and even more (£843 million) on DVDs. Similar amounts were spent buying books and magazines.

Leisure travel features very highly in gay and lesbian spending patterns with total expenditure of more than £3 billion being spent on tourism during 2005.

Mobile phone bills accounted for more than £1 billion of gay market spending whilst clothing accounted for a further £1.9 billion.

Interesting differences are revealed in this new research between gay men and lesbians.

Gay men spent more on leisure travel, DVDs and clothing last year than lesbians. However, UK lesbians outspent UK gay men in 2005 on their mobile telephone bills and on buying magazines and are far more likely than gay men to take a honeymoon after registering their civil partnerships.

Johnson also added that it is important to realise that not every lesbian or gay person is affluent or able to spend as much as others.

"Gays and lesbians are a very diverse group of people, and quite obviously not everyone is earning above average incomes," says Johnson.

"In terms of gay household incomes, the relative absence of children in gay relationships does increase the average levels of disposable income available for discretionary spending on these various consumer categories."