The UK is loving Linked -In

As if you had not realised; the UK has embraced Linked in in a very big way. London is the busiest place on earth for Linked In. But the most astonishing stat is towards th end of the article.. who knew there were so many???
Jorgen Sundberg writes:

• 150 million worldwide members of LinkedIn
• 8 million UK members
• Almost two thirds of all professionals in Britain are on LinkedIn
• Almost a third of members use LinkedIn to grow their business
• 64% year on year membership growth
• 82% use LinkedIn for business purposes
• 74% use LinkedIn to network with other professionals
• 30% use LinkedIn to look for a new job

Conclusion: Brits have taken to LinkedIn in a very big way. Unlike France (Viadeo) and Germany (Xing), this country never really had a professional network contender to LinkedIn and it's showing in the figures.
I hear on the grapevine that it's actually closer to 9 million UK users of LinkedIn, most of them are based in London. In fact, London is the no.1 city on LinkedIn in terms of user activity. That means the royal capital has more logins, clicks, comments etc than any other place in the world (including Menlo Park, CA where LinkedIn are based).
Two thirds of all professionals on LinkedIn is very good going, looks like we're almost on par with the Dutch who have the highest rate of LinkedIn users per professional capita.
It's no surprise that most users use LinkedIn for business purposes; to grow their companies and network with professionals. If you want to use social networks for that very purpose, LinkedIn is definitely your best bet.
Finally, 30% use LinkedIn to look for a new job. That figure might seem low to you but I believe they mean these people are currently looking for a job. Yes, most folks will use the professional network for job search at some time or another but at any given time about a third are looking for a new opportunity.
The rest of us are known as 'passive' candidates - meaning we're probably open to hearing what jobs are going but will only move for a spectacular opportunity.
LinkedIn is in my book moving away from being about careers and more about giving you a professional identity online. It's going mainstream and becoming an essential for most people that work in an office. Having said that, remember that there are about 110,000 recruiters on LinkedIn in the UK so there will be plenty of jobs coming your way in future via LinkedIn.