Annual streaming revenues in the UK record industry have broken through the £1 billion threshold for the first time, according to the latest figures from British record label trade group BPI.
Following price rises from streaming platforms, streaming revenues were up 5.7% to £1.02 billion in 2024, now accounting for 68.1% of overall recorded music revenue. However, this growth represents a slowdown from the 8.4% increase seen the previous year, which likely reflects the increasingly mature streaming market around the world.
“After a decade of growth, it is all too easy to take for granted the success of UK recorded music and the vital role record businesses play in this”, says BPI boss Jo Twist. “But in the face of intensifying global competition, it’s essential they’re empowered by a supportive policy environment to keep British artists on the world’s top step”.
The latest figures mark a significant milestone for the UK recorded music sector, which has now enjoyed ten consecutive years of growth. Total revenue increased by 4.8% to £1.49 billion in 2024, representing more than 80% growth over the past decade to reach a new nominal high.
Of course, it’s important to recognise that the figures reported by the BPI represent wholesale revenue generated by record labels from recorded music, rather than retail value.
While retail figures (as reported by organisations like ERA) represent the full price consumers pay at checkout including VAT, streaming platforms’ share and publishing royalties, the BPI’s wholesale numbers reflect only what record labels and other sound recording rightsholders receive after these deductions. The wholesale figures also include international revenues from UK-based labels’ music being streamed abroad.
YolanDa Brown, the artist, broadcaster and music education campaigner who is also BPI Chair, says, “Given the colossal effort it took initially to turn around years of decline, it is a real cause for celebration that the UK recorded music market has now been on the rise again for an entire decade. I am particularly proud of the part played in this comeback by the UK’s eclectic and vastly-talent artist community, backed by their record labels”.
That said, at the top end of streaming, it is non-UK artists commanding the charts. Four tracks – all from non-UK artists – each generated more than 200 million audio and video streams in the UK during 2024, led by Noah Kahan’s ‘Stick Season’ with 233.1 million streams.
Other top performers included Benson Boone’s ‘Beautiful Things’ (219.3 million), Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ (202.8 million) and Teddy Swims’ ‘Lose Control’ (201.6 million).
Over a dozen additional tracks accumulated 100 million audio and video streams in 2024, including ‘Stargazing’, the breakthrough hit by BRITs Rising Star 2025 winner Myles Smith, as well as releases by fellow UK artists Cassö, RAYE and D-Block Europe (‘Prada’), and Artemas (‘I Like The Way You Kiss Me’).
Paid subscriptions to services like Amazon, Apple, Spotify and YouTube continue to form the backbone of the streaming economy, making up more than 86% of the UK streaming market with £875.5 million in revenue, up 5.9% from 2023. Interestingly – and contrary to wider global trends that have seen ad-supported streaming deliver underwhelming growth – ad-supported revenues saw the strongest growth in the streaming segment, increasing by 8.9% to £77.9 million.
The physical music market continued its growth trajectory in 2024, albeit at a significantly slower pace. Total revenue across vinyl, CD and other physical formats increased by just 1.3% to £246.5 million – a marked deceleration from the robust 12.8% growth recorded in 2023.
Vinyl – as expected – remains the star performer within physical formats, with revenue climbing 2.9% to £145.7 million. This represents a remarkable 650% expansion since 2014, when vinyl generated just £19.4 million. To put this in perspective, vinyl now accounts for nearly 15% of the UK’s wholesale streaming revenues (though the vinyl figure also includes the publishers’ cut for mechanicals), having transformed from niche collector’s format to mainstream revenue driver.
Interestingly, vinyl’s growth is increasingly propelled by contemporary releases rather than nostalgic catalogue titles. Eight of 2024’s top ten vinyl sellers were current releases, led by Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, a significant shift from 2014 when only half of the top ten represented new music.
Whether or not that shift signals a vinyl market attracting new generations of music fans – alongside older consumers who grew up with the format – or is distorted by a dedicated market of Taylor Swifts fans with a limitless ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ appetite for cynical versioning by major labels – will only become clear over time.
Meanwhile, formats once written off as obsolete are demonstrating surprising resilience. CD revenue has essentially stabilised, declining by just 0.5% to £96.7 million after years of double-digit drops. Having weathered the digital storm, CDs have settled into a sustainable £90 million-plus annual market.
The format’s top ten chart mirrors vinyl’s focus on current releases, featuring new albums from established acts like Coldplay (‘Moon Music’) alongside breakthrough artists such as Sabrina Carpenter (‘Short N Sweet’).
Together, these supposedly “legacy” formats – CDs and downloads – contributed a substantial £121 million to the industry’s bottom line in 2024. Digital downloads continued their expected decline but at a significantly slower rate, dropping 6.6% to £24.3 million, marking the second consecutive year of single-digit percentage falls after previously experiencing much steeper decreases.
Beyond consumer sales, other revenue streams saw healthy growth. Income from synchronisation – music licensed for use in film, television, games and advertising – reached a new peak, rising 11.3% to £43.9 million. Public performance and broadcasting revenue, which flows through the collective licensing system, also performed strongly, increasing by 5.6% to a record £161.7 million.
Despite trumpeting a decade of growth, the industry’s celebration comes with significant caveats. When adjusted for inflation, today’s “record” revenues actually represent a market still substantially smaller than what existed before the digital disruption. The £1.49 billion in 2024 falls short by £460 million compared to inflation-adjusted 2006 figures – a sobering reminder that streaming’s revolution has restored some, but not all, of the industry’s former economic power.
In her statement, Twist specifically warns about the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, noting that “the exciting potential of AI” must be balanced by safeguarding “the UK’s gold-standard copyright framework” against the interests of “global big tech”, revealing the industry’s on-going anxiety about maintaining control over its resurgent revenue streams.
Having weathered piracy and fought for streaming remuneration, record companies now face potential disruption from AI technologies that could fundamentally alter how music is created and consumed.
The record industry points to significant investments – over £2 billion between 2018-2023 in A&R, marketing and promotion – as evidence of its commitment to artist development.
However, questions remain about how equitably this restored prosperity is being distributed among artists themselves, particularly as major labels continue to dominate the wholesale revenue picture. While the top-line figures show industry health, they reveal little about whether the revitalised music economy is effectively supporting sustainable careers for a broad spectrum of musicians in the UK.