Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Drake become the UK’s biggest streaming artists of 2022

(ES Composite)

Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Drake were the most streamed artists in the UK last year, according to figures from the UK’s world leading music trade association, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Official Charts Company (OCC).

Its yearly report makes for fascinating reading. Harry Styles’ track As It Was became the most streamed song of 2022 in the UK: in total, it clocked up a whopping combined 180.9 million audio and video streams.

The year also marked a number of milestones for the British music industry. So, here are the most interesting takes from the BPI and OCC’s comprehensive look into the UK’s streaming habits last year.

2022 was a record breaking year for streaming numbers in the UK

Harry Styles had the biggest hit of 2022 in the UK with As It Was streamed 180.9 million times (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Streaming in the UK reached some significant milestones last year. Figures show streams surpassed the 150 billion mark for the first time ever in a calendar year with 159.3 billion streams, just three years after the UK passed the 100 billion mark for the first time. To break down the numbers, that’s three billion music streams a week.

These days, streaming also represents 86.1% of music consumption in the country, a significant rise from 2016, where percentages hovered at around 36.4%.

Streaming has had a great impact in artist’s audience reach

Music artists big and small are reaping the benefits of streaming, in particular the way in which it allows them to reach audiences around the world.

Lesser known UK artists have been making significant gains thanks to the rise in streaming popularity, particularly in global markets. Yorkshire’s Asking Alexandra had three top 10 albums on the US Billboard 200 charts, while London-born R&B artist Ella Mai also managed to pick up a US Billboard Hot 100 Top 5 hit and a Grammy Award for her track Boo’d Up, despite not charting in the UK Singles Top 40.

PinkPantheress was one of more than 100 artists from the UK to top half a billion streams (PA)

At the top of the pile, more than 100 UK artists topped 500 million streams last year, including the BBC’s Sound of 2022 winner PinkPantheress, electro-pop star Marina, and hip-hop star Tion Wayne. Rock band Bring Me The Horizon, singer-songwriter Rex Orange County, and singer-songwriter, rapper and producer Labrinth went even better, topping over one billion global audio streams.

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Streaming has made it harder for artists to break into the UK Singles Top 40 (but TikTok helps)

In order to reach the Top 40 of the UK charts, an artist needs a minimum of 1.3 million streams per week, according to the report. For those who have chart topping ambitions, figures show artists need 7 million combined audio and video streams a week for a UK number one.

That’s a substantial number of streams to achieve, and every song from a new artist that hit the top of the charts last year went viral on social media platform Tiktok beforehand, including LF System’s huge hit Afraid To Feel, which was No 1 for eight consecutive weeks last year.

The UK’s top streaming artists

Only half of the UK’s top 10 streaming artists are from the UK, with the rest coming from North America.

UK’s Top 10 streaming artists

1 Ed Sheeran

2 Taylor Swift

3 Drake

4 Harry Styles

5 Eminem

6 The Weeknd

7 Kanye West

8 D-Block Europe

9 Arctic Monkeys

10 Dave

The biggest surprise on the list is UK rap collective D-Block Europe, who, despite being the only artists on the top 10 list to not yet have a UK number one, out-streamed acts including Adele, Beyoncé, Coldplay and Arctic Monkeys.

D Block Europe outstreamed the likes of Adele and Arctic Monkeys last year (D Block Europe)

Their position climbs even higher when looking at home-grown UK artists’ streaming figures, which placed them at number three – showing their streaming dominance across multiple platforms, as both their audio and music videos perform well.

UK’s Top 10 home-grown streaming artists

1 Ed Sheeran

2 Harry Styles

3 D-Block Europe

4 Arctic Monkeys

5 Dave

6 Adele

7 Coldplay

8 Elton John

9 Dua Lipa

10 Queen

Streaming has given us the nostalgia factor

But it’s not just new music: the UK is consuming a substantial amount of music from decades past, according to the new report.

The Beatles remain the most streamed artist of the 1960s (PA) (PA Archive)

Unsurprisingly, The Beatles and Rolling Stones dominate tracks released in the 1960s, while Fleetwood Mac have the most streamed track of the 1970s, with Dreams clocking 49.2 million streams last year and finding new audiences after going viral on TikTok. Elton John and Queen also dominate streaming figures during the decade, with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody streamed 45.3 million times in 2022.

Stranger Things also proved a hit maker: Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill reached No 1 in the UK last year, almost four decades after its initial release, thanks to the Netflix series, and clocked a whopping 124 million streams in 2022. This was followed by Tears For Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World, which also featured in the show and was streamed 73.2 million times last year.