There were 5,441 sexual communication with a child offences recorded across 42 police forces between April 2020 and March 2021, data obtained by the NSPCC through a Freedom of Information request shows.
This marks an increase of around 70 per cent compared with recorded crimes in 2017/18, the charity warned.
There was an annual increase of nine per cent on offences recorded across the same police forces in 2019/20, the research adds.
Almost half of the offences involved the use of Facebook-owned apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, the NSPCC said.
Instagram was the most common site used, flagged by police in 32 per cent of instances where the platform was known last year while Snapchat was used in over a quarter of offences.
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