British music is undergoing a commercial revival at home and abroad – a turnaround that will be on full display at the BRITs this weekend.
Nominees performing at the ceremony at Co-op Live include Olivia Dean, Harry Styles, Wolf Alice and Raye, while globally successful artists also in the running include Lola Young, Sleep Token, Myles Smith, Ed Sheeran and more.
As the industry prepares to celebrate the success of UK talent at the Co-op Live ceremony on Saturday (February 28), Spotify has published UK-specific data as part of its Loud & Clear initiative on transparency.
It follows last month’s announcement of the global headline figure of $11 billion paid out to the music industry (across all rights-holders, artists and songwriters) in 2025.
While that represented 10% year-on-year growth (compared to 4% across other industry income sources), the UK increase in Spotify royalty payments came in a bit lower with a 6% increase. The total UK amount paid out in 2025 was £860 million, which has more than doubled since 2015.
“It’s a significant payout from Spotify into the UK industry,” said Spotify head of music, Europe, Andy Sloan-Vincent.
He confirmed that, in line with the streaming giant’s global impact, Spotify is the single biggest retailer in the UK based on payments to the music industry.
“They are huge numbers,” said Sloan-Vincent. “The $11 billion [globally] was the single biggest payout of any provider in history.”
Spotify continues to power ahead in terms of subscriber growth in 2026. Globally, the DSP has reported subscriptions up nine million on the prior quarter to 290m.
While growth of Spotify royalty payments was down from 8% in 2024, Sloan-Vincent described the 2025 performance as “very strong”. It comes as the UK streaming market matures in line with other territories where DSP has long been the dominant form of consumption.
“I think it's certainly a positive figure, and that growth is only a good thing for the industry,” said Sloan-Vincent. “We are intent on continuing to grow the pie for rights-holders and artists. Growth can fluctuate, but it feels very strong to be 6% up when we’re this far along in the journey,”
At the current trajectory, Spotify’s UK royalty payments will surpass £1 billion in 2028. In dollar terms, the billion threshold has already been passed.
“We want to talk about it this week, because British artists just had a big Grammys run and we're about to run into what will hopefully be a big BRITs in Manchester, and the the first of its kind in Manchester,” said Sloan-Vincent. “So it feels like a really nice moment to celebrate success for the UK, success for Britain.”
It follows a revival in the Spotify Wrapped results for UK talent in 2025.
Spotify highlighted key results in 2025 in the UK:
– There are around 150 UK artists generating over £1 million on Spotify alone in a single year.
– The number of UK artists who are generating over £500,000 on Spotify alone in a single year has more than doubled since 2018.
– UK artists were responsible for over a third of the tracks that were featured on UK daily Top 50 in 2025, up eight percentage points from 2024.
We're feeling really confident about the amount of revenue we're driving into that UK business and creative executives for the next decade and beyond
Andy Sloan-Vincent
“The 150 artists [generating over £1 million on Spotify alone in a single year] that we are talking about aren't just superstars,” Sloan-Vincent told Music Week. “If you really dig into [the data], it’s folk singers, dance music feature artists and legacy pop acts. It's actually a pretty broad spectrum. So we're feeling really confident about the amount of revenue we're driving into that UK business. And I think the depth to that pyramid is really deep.”
Beyond those Top 150 earning artists, Sloan-Vincent confirmed many more were not far off the £1m annual threshold.
In its Loud & Clear breakdown, Spotify also identified how UK artists are performing domestically and internationally:
– Over 75% of all royalties generated by UK artists on Spotify in 2025 were from listeners outside of the UK.
– Nearly 10,000 UK artists were added to editorial playlists on Spotify in 2025.
– In 2025, UK artists were discovered by first-time listeners over 13 billion times on Spotify.
There was also good news for the indie sector with 45% of all royalties generated by UK artists on Spotify in 2025 coming from independent artists or labels.
With the BRITs set to highlight global British talent, Sloan-Vincent said Spotify will also be taking the chance to celebrate that success in Manchester this week.
“It's a bumper year for us in the sense that we have artists that are coming straight out of Grammy wins – and a number of artists coming straight from recognition in markets that aren’t our own – to come back and to play in Manchester,” he told Music Week. “And to get out of London and showcase themselves as well, I think it's pretty exciting.
“We're hosting a small industry mixer on Thursday [February 26] to celebrate British music, and the number of American executives coming in to be part of it is way out of line for what we would normally expect at this time of year.”
Click here to read our world exclusive with Universal Music UK CEO & chairman Dickon Stainer on the global impact of British talent. Our special report on Olivia Dean’s global success is here.
And Music Week’s BRITS 2026 exclusive digital cover with showrunner Stacey Tang is here.
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