Britain’s non-surgical beauty industry has claimed a huge injection of business – thanks to the UK’s 2.5 million weight loss jab users. Earlier this month, it was revealed that July 2025 sales of fat-fighting jabs Mounjaro and Wegovy reached 2.5 million, compared to the 493,000 bought in July 2024.
Initially designed as ‘anti-diabetic medication’, they are set to be made widely available on the NHS under plans drafted by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, but they are currently rare on a free prescription and many people are choosing to go private. Now the rising number of Britons shedding large amounts of weight has sparked an unlikely boom in the non-surgical beauty industry, according to one of the UK’s top aesthetics entrepreneurs.
Roy Cowley, founder and CEO of 3D Aesthetics, says demand for his company’s non-surgical technology has “gone through the roof” as once-obese patients turn to clinics for help with loose, sagging skin.
Cowley, 60, told the Daily Express: “People thought weight-loss injections would reduce demand for aesthetics. But what we’re actually seeing is the opposite.
“We’ve seen a massive increase in demand from clinics who received an influx of enquiries from customers who have used jabs, lost significant weight, and are now dealing with loose skin on their stomachs, arms, legs, even their faces.
“People are shocked, and this is the lesser-known side effect of rapid weight loss using these jabs. Nobody warned them about it. And they want to fix it – fast, but without going under the knife.
“The demand is relentless. People have lost two, three, four stone in some cases, but their skin hasn’t kept up. We’ve never seen this volume of enquiries before – and it’s directly tied to the weight-loss jab trend.”
For decades, his business has been supplying non-surgical fat reduction and skin tightening machines to beauty and medical clinics across the country.
But the popularity of the jabs has soared over the past year as they increasingly become used to tackle obesity. Around four per cent of households in the UK currently use them.
Mounjaro became available on the NHS through GP practices in June this year, as part of plans to roll the jab out to 220,000 patients over the next three years.
Only a handful of the jabs can currently be prescribed for weight loss on the NHS. The criteria for a prescription is also currently strict, despite at least 3.4 million patients being eligible for them on the NHS.
Many Britons are spending hundreds of pounds on purchasing the drugs privately. Boots online pharmacy sells Wegovy’s lowest dosage of 0.25mg a week at £125.10, rising to £206 for the highest dosage of 2.4mg.
Meanwhile, with Brits buying the jabs privately or online, the non-surgical beauty industry has grown by more than 20 per cent in the past two years, and the number of private clinics offering body contouring treatments has doubled according to the British College of Aesthetic Medicine.
One maxillofacial surgeon, whose operations and research span the NHS and private sector, also reported a rise in private patients asking to improve their looks after shedding weight on the slimming jabs.
“One patient asked me to restore the volume in their face after losing nine stones,” he said.
Other UK consultants have warned that the surge in the number of people using slimming jabs to lose weight could lead to a rise in patients travelling abroad for tummy tucks or other invasive surgery to remove excess skin.
But Cowley has seen a surge of people using his non-surgical ‘3D ReFIRM’ device – his latest technologically-advanced treatment – designed to “lift, firm, and remodel skin following significant weight loss”.
It works by combining radio-frequency and infrared light to heat the deep layers of the skin, causing immediate collagen contraction and stimulating new collagen and elastin production.
This dual-energy approach works to tighten loose skin, reduce wrinkles, and improve the overall texture and firmness of the skin over time.
Cowley says his 3D Aesthetics firm has now supplied over 4,000 devices to more than 3,000 clinics across the UK, with providers nationwide already adopting 3D treatments to “deliver visible results without the need for surgery”.
Married dad Cowley, of Moreton Morrell, Warwickshire, runs a family business operating two flagship clinics – in Leamington Spa and Knowle – as well as supplying clinics nationwide with the technology.
And he claims his business has had a fresh injection of business thanks to the weight loss jab craze. He added: “We didn’t plan for weight-loss jabs to become such a phenomenon.
“But what we’ve realised is they’ve created a second wave of demand. People need help completing the transformation they started.
“And we’re right there – providing the tools, the technology, and the trust to do it the right way.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting wants the jabs more widely used to “help us finally defeat obesity” but recently warned the “millions who can’t afford” them are losing out, while the wealthy are not.
“The wealthy talk about how they’ve transformed their health, their confidence, their quality of life. But what about the millions who can’t afford them?” he told the autumn Labour Party conference.
“That is a return to the days when health was determined by wealth. When some had access to the best care money can buy, while others waited and suffered. And I say: never again.”
