The amount of money spent on music subscriptions by UK consumers grew modestly last year, up 3.2% YoY.
That’s according to new preliminary stats from the UK’s Entertainment Retailers’ Association (ERA), whose members include Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and SoundCloud.a
According to ERA’s data, 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 monetary terms, that represented a YoY increase of GBP £63.0 million.
(ERA’s figures are retail amounts – i.e. what consumers spent on subscriptions, rather than the wholesale figure paid to music rightsholders. They don’t include revenue from ad-supported tiers.)
The 3.2% growth rate reported for 2025 marked the slowest annual increase in UK streaming subscription revenues over the past five years, and represents a deceleration from 2024’s 5.9% growth and 2023’s 10.2% growth.
Crucially, the 3.2% YoY growth rate in 2025 matched the UK Office for National Statistics’ inflation rate of 3.2% for the 12 months to November 2025. (The full annual rate will be in this ballpark, but officially determined when December’s figures are confirmed later this month.)
This represents a stark contrast to the market’s performance earlier in the decade: UK streaming subscription revenues grew by double-digits in 2020 and 2021, posting YoY increases of £199.4 million and £191.3 million respectively.
Note: ERA has revised its annual streaming subscription revenue figure for 2024 down by £36 million from the number it initially reported, resulting in a 5.9% YoY increase for 2024 vs 2023.
The slowdown is particularly notable given that the UK subscription market benefited from yet another Spotify price increase in 2025, albeit towards the end of the year.
In October 2025, Spotify announced it was increasing prices for multiple subscription tiers in the UK for the third time in just over two years.
Spotify’s Premium Individual tier increased by GBP £1 per month to £12.99, marking an 8.3% increase. Its Duo and Family plans rose to £17.99 per month and £21.99 per month, respectively.
That followed UK price rises in July 2023 (when Spotify moved from its long-held £9.99 price point to £10.99) and April 2024 (when it increased to £11.99). The Premium Individual tier has therefore risen 30% in less than two and a half years.
As MBW has previously reported, data captured by the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) showed that in December 2021, Spotify’s market share of all music streaming’s monthly active users (‘free’ plus ‘premium’) in the UK stood at over 50%.
In addition to streaming revenues, ERA’s latest numbers also cover physical music sales and downloads. (ERA’s members include UK physical music retailers such as HMV, plus a network of independent retailers).
Annual UK physical music revenues (across CD and vinyl sales) surged 11.5% YoY in 2025 – totaling £368.1 million (USD $484.2m).
The strong physical performance was driven by vinyl, which grew 18.5% to £238.5 million, while CD revenues remained essentially flat, down just 1% to £125.0 million. Other physical formats – predominantly cassette – nearly doubled, up 95% to £4.6 million.
Physical formats increased their share of music revenues to 15%, their highest share since 2021.
Download sales continued their decline, down 3.5% YoY, to GBP £39.9 million (USD $52.5m).
Total UK 2025 recorded music sales – including subscription streaming, physical music, and downloads – stood at GBP £2.453 billion (USD $3.23bn), up 4.2% YoY.
That GBP £2.453 billion figure, said ERA, was the UK recorded music industry’s highest annual revenue tally of all time.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley said: “Streaming services in the UK fund around 60 different programmes supporting music, with a third of them focussing on new and emerging UK talent. Record shops too are playing their part, promoting more than 4,000 instore and outstore performances a year, the majority of them featuring UK artists.
“Streaming services and retailers are committed to supporting new UK music and the emergence of a new wave of UK artists is vindicating their approach.”
The combined UK music, video and games markets surveyed by ERA reached £13.257 billion in 2025, up 7.1% YoY and marking their 13th consecutive year of growth.
ERA noted that entertainment sales grew more than four times faster than the 1.5% GDP growth predicted for the UK economy by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
2025’s total in UK entertainment sales was more than 66% larger than the total in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
Bayley added: “This result vindicates the transformational role of streaming services and retailers in driving the entertainment sector to new heights, thanks to a potent combination of technology, investment and innovation. While conditions may be tough in the wider economy, streaming services and retailers are winning a greater share of consumer spending and proving their central role in the UK’s creative economy.”
All GBP to USD conversions in this story have been made at the average annual exchange rate for 2025.
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