If you’re a woman in your 30s, you’ll have spotted them. On tube trains, on buses, on billboards and TikTok and Instagram: reminders that time, if you’ve ever thought of having children, is running out. Advertising of fertility services, from clinics to egg freezing to ovulation and at-home hormone tests, is everywhere: a recent report from the advertising regulator shows that between September 2024 and October 2025, at least 9,340 ads were published on Google and Meta.

One recent campaign on the London tube for Voy’s at-home hormone tests even targeted men, proclaiming “It’s not him. It’s his hormones.” Which, not surprisingly, upset men. But behind this fertility advertising boom is a complex story that involves the fertility crisis, NHS austerity, private equity and changing patient expectations – and suggests that something, if we want more babies, needs to change.

If you’ve felt uncomfortable about ads for fertility services, you’re not alone. One clinic in particular has always “raised my eyebrows” with its influencer campaigns, confides Catherine Tracey, an IVF patient and one half of the IVF BFF podcast. “I’ve always wondered how legit it is, what deal the influencers are getting.” Hannah Wrathall, a women’s health advocate, points out that much of this marketing targets women “of a certain age”.

“The assumption is that… you want a baby. That is your role, and therefore you’re going to be open to this advertising. It feels like another assumption put on us, I suppose.” Some ads appear to suggest that women can choose to side-step their biological clocks, which feels misleading when the science appears to tell us that this isn’t the case.

“Telling women you can have it all, because if you just freeze your eggs, then you don’t need to worry – that’s a side of it that feels particularly icky,” says Wrathall. The sector has a history of misleading claims. In December 2025 the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) reported that September 2024, 18.1 per cent of fertility ads on Google and Meta – nearly one in five – made “unsubstantiated ‘best’ or ‘leading’ claims” or contained “unclear or incomplete success-rate figures”.

Although, clinics have now fallen into line: by October 2025, that figure had fallen to just 3.3 per cent. How have we got to the point where these ads feel so common? It’s partly macro-economics.

Like most countries, our fertility rate is in steep decline: in 2024, it dropped to a record low for the third consecutive year. But, despite complaints from the likes of Nigel Farage about young people’s lack of motivation in this area, the fertility industry is keenly aware that there are plenty of people who want to have babies– around one in six couples struggle to conceive. Consequently, the number of fertility clinics operating in the UK has jumped in recent years, from 107 in 2023 to 141 in 2025.

This abundance of clinics is good if you’re trying to conceive, but competition hasn’t make the process much cheaper: IVF costs about £5,000 a go on average. And the NHS, which should in theory cover this cost for many people, is increasingly unhelpful. Public sector belt-tightening means the number of IVF cycles paid for by it has declined by 16 per cent since before the pandemic.

NHS guidelines recommend that those struggling to conceive should receive three rounds of IVF, but only two of the 42 local boards charged with controlling NHS budgets actually offer that. This has created an opportunity for clinics – and private equity. The British fertility industry is worth £505m, according to one estimate, and is growing at a rate of 11.6 per cent a year.

In recent years, private equity companies have bought up some of the UK’s most well-known providers, including an investment in Bourn Hall, the world’s first IVF clinic. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing – research has shown that private equity investments actually improve success rates at fertility clinics. But it has also made the industry increasingly cutthroat about acquiring patients, says one person who works in fertility marketing, who asked not to be named so they could talk candidly about their job.

“Historically, [referrals were] very doctor-driven,” they say, meaning that people would mostly choose their clinics based on the reputation of its doctors. “But now a lot of clinics are owned by private equity and the landscape is changing enormously.” That has made the sector “more competitive than it was 10 or 15 years ago”, they say. Step forward, marketing consultants, who have found new ways to entice patients beside simple success rates.

This takes the form of the influencer collabs you see on Tiktok and the slick branding you see on Tube ads – but also extends to Instagram-friendly waiting rooms decked out with squashy armchairs and coffee machines and thriving social media presences for clinics and their clinicians. Several IVF patients told me they chose their clinics because they had seen patients sharing their experiences ther