The amount of cash spent on music subscriptions by UK customers grew modestly final yr, up 3.2% YoY.
That’s based on new preliminary stats from the UK’s Leisure Retailers’ Affiliation (ERA), whose members embrace Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and SoundCloud.a
In line with ERA’s information, some GBP £2.045 billion (USD $2.69bn) was spent on music streaming subscriptions in 2025, up from GBP £1.982 billion in 2024.
In financial phrases, that represented a YoY improve of GBP £63.0 million.
(ERA’s figures are retail quantities – i.e. what customers spent on subscriptions, slightly than the wholesale determine paid to music rightsholders. They don’t embrace income from ad-supported tiers.)
The 3.2% progress fee reported for 2025 marked the slowest annual improve in UK streaming subscription revenues over the previous 5 years, and represents a deceleration from 2024’s 5.9% progress and 2023’s 10.2% progress.
Crucially, the 3.2% YoY progress fee in 2025 matched the UK Workplace for Nationwide Statistics’ inflation fee of 3.2% for the 12 months to November 2025. (The total annual fee can be on this ballpark, however formally decided when December’s figures are confirmed later this month.)
This represents a stark distinction to the market’s efficiency earlier within the decade: UK streaming subscription revenues grew by double-digits in 2020 and 2021, posting YoY will increase of £199.4 million and £191.3 million respectively.
Observe: ERA has revised its annual streaming subscription income determine for 2024 down by £36 million from the quantity it initially reported, leading to a 5.9% YoY improve for 2024 vs 2023.
The slowdown is especially notable on condition that the UK subscription market benefited from yet one more Spotify worth improve in 2025, albeit in the direction of the top of the yr.
In October 2025, Spotify introduced it was rising costs for a number of subscription tiers within the UK for the third time in simply over two years.
Spotify’s Premium Particular person tier elevated by GBP £1 per thirty days to £12.99, marking an 8.3% improve. Its Duo and Household plans rose to £17.99 per thirty days and £21.99 per thirty days, respectively.
That adopted UK worth rises in July 2023 (when Spotify moved from its long-held £9.99 worth level to £10.99) and April 2024 (when it elevated to £11.99). The Premium Particular person tier has due to this fact risen 30% in lower than two and a half years.
As MBW has beforehand reported, information captured by the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) confirmed that in December 2021, Spotify’s market share of all music streaming’s month-to-month energetic customers (‘free’ plus ‘premium’) within the UK stood at over 50%.
Along with streaming revenues, ERA’s newest numbers additionally cowl bodily music gross sales and downloads. (ERA’s members embrace UK bodily music retailers similar to HMV, plus a community of unbiased retailers).
Annual UK bodily music revenues (throughout CD and vinyl gross sales) surged 11.5% YoY in 2025 – totaling £368.1 million (USD $484.2m).
The robust bodily efficiency was pushed by vinyl, which grew 18.5% to £238.5 million, whereas CD revenues remained primarily flat, down simply 1% to £125.0 million. Different bodily codecs – predominantly cassette – practically doubled, up 95% to £4.6 million.
Bodily codecs elevated their share of music revenues to 15%, their highest share since 2021.
Obtain gross sales continued their decline, down 3.5% YoY, to GBP £39.9 million (USD $52.5m).
Whole UK 2025 recorded music gross sales – together with subscription streaming, bodily music, and downloads – stood at GBP £2.453 billion (USD $3.23bn), up 4.2% YoY.
That GBP £2.453 billion determine, stated ERA, was the UK recorded music business’s highest annual income tally of all time.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley stated: “Streaming companies within the UK fund round 60 totally different programmes supporting music, with a 3rd of them focussing on new and rising UK expertise. File outlets too are enjoying their half, selling greater than 4,000 instore and outstore performances a yr, nearly all of them that includes UK artists.
“Streaming companies and retailers are dedicated to supporting new UK music and the emergence of a brand new wave of UK artists is vindicating their method.”
The mixed UK music, video and video games markets surveyed by ERA reached £13.257 billion in 2025, up 7.1% YoY and marking their thirteenth consecutive yr of progress.
ERA famous that leisure gross sales grew greater than 4 instances sooner than the 1.5% GDP progress predicted for the UK financial system by the Workplace for Funds Accountability.
2025’s complete in UK leisure gross sales was greater than 66% bigger than the whole in 2019, the final pre-pandemic yr.
Bayley added: “This consequence vindicates the transformational function of streaming companies and retailers in driving the leisure sector to new heights, due to a potent mixture of expertise, funding and innovation. Whereas circumstances could also be robust within the wider financial system, streaming companies and retailers are successful a higher share of client spending and proving their central function within the UK’s inventive financial system.”
All GBP to USD conversions on this story have been made on the common annual alternate fee for 2025.
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