There's a boom going on in the male beauty industry, with a 66 per cent rise in the number of male clients.

Haircuts count for a large section of that, although hair removal, manicures and tanning have reached record levels of demand. The increase in customers is estimated by the Kantar Worldpanel to help create 11,000 jobs in the beauty industry over the next year.

Interestingly, the type of beauty treatment required is very variable by region. More than a third of Welsh male customers wanted tanning treatments, and half wanted hair removal, whilst in London, tanning down to six per cent of treatments, with "pampering" (massages and skin treatments) topping the chart.

However, the biggest rise in grooming treatments bought by men was amongst the macho men of Scotland, where demand has gone up by three quarters, the sharpest increase in Britain.