Music industry in the United Kingdom - statistics & facts

YouTube is top music streaming site

In a 2018 survey YouTube was listed as the top platform used to stream and access music, with a 59 percent respondent share – beating Spotify in second place by 17 percent. When it came to choosing a music streaming service, sound quality and affordability seem to be consumers’ top priorities according to an early 2020 survey. Ease of use (downloading, playlist creation, music discovery) also rated highly on the list of important features. All of this leads to the question – how are brick and mortar shops doing? Not too well it seems, as revenue from physical retail stores continue to drop year after year. Amounting to 432.3 million British pounds in 2012, this had fallen to 180.7 million in 2019 after a continual yearly decline.

Music tourism in the UK

London and the North West draw the largest number of music tourists in the UK. Unsurprisingly, both locations are home to the UK’s two largest indoor arenas – Manchester Arena and the O2 in London. As the second largest music sector in the country, the live music industry was significantly hit in 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic. As the lockdown begins to lift, attendees expressed that social distancing measures such as limiting the number of guests and avoidance of long queues would help them feel more comfortable attending events at venues again.



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