BPI Report Shows Rock Reaching Near Decade-High Share of UK Singles Market

According to BPI’s All About The Music 2026 report, rock accounted for 22.2% of UK singles consumption in 2025. That is its highest share since 2016 and a noticeable increase from 21.4% the year before. Only pop sits ahead at 33.3%, with hip hop/rap (14.1%), R&B (10.4%), and dance (9.5%) following behind.

What is driving that resurgence is not just legacy appeal. New records are cutting through at scale. Artists like Sam Fender, Sleep Token, and sombr pushed rock back into the weekly Top 10 conversation, with six rock tracks reaching the Official Singles Chart Top 10 across the year. For context, that number was just one in 2020.

Sleep Token’s breakthrough moment came with Caramel, while sombr’s Back To Friends and Gigi Perez’s Sailor Song marked their first Top 10 entries. Meanwhile, Sam Fender’s Rein Me In featuring Olivia Dean did more than just chart. The track hit No.1, won Song of the Year at the The BRIT Awards, and crossed over into the US with a debut on the Billboard Hot 100.

At the same time, catalogue continues to do serious work. Tracks like Mr Brightside by The Killers, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, and Iris by Goo Goo Dolls remain firmly embedded in listening habits, alongside newer hits like Too Sweet from Hozier. Even Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things, originally released in 2024, remained one of the biggest rock tracks of 2025, finishing as the seventh biggest song overall.

While the singles market tells one story, the albums market tells an even bigger one. Rock remains dominant here, accounting for 36.0% of album consumption in 2025, up from 35.3% the previous year. Pop follows at 28.9%, with the rest of the genres significantly behind.

A big part of that dominance comes from both blockbuster releases and the enduring strength of catalogue. Oasis re-entered the conversation in a major way, with Time Flies – 1994–2009 and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory landing in the year-end Top 10 following their massive reunion tour. Alongside them were Sam Fender’s People Watching and Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years – Don’t Stop.

Other major contributors included Arctic Monkeys with AM, Fontaines D.C. with Romance, and greatest hits collections from Linkin Park, Queen, and The Cure.

Sam Fender’s People Watching also set the pace commercially, delivering the biggest first-week sales for a UK album in 2025 with more than 107,000 chart units. It went on to win the Mercury Music Prize and was part of a wider trend. Seventeen rock albums hit No.1 on the Official Albums Chart across the year, fifteen of them from UK artists.

Geographically, that success was spread across the country. From London acts like Wolf Alice and Florence + The Machine, to North East exports like Sam Fender, and Welsh mainstays Stereophonics, rock’s footprint remains nationwide.

Then there is vinyl, where rock is not just strong. It is dominant. The genre accounted for 54.9% of all vinyl album sales in 2025. More than that, 61 of the year’s top 100 vinyl releases were rock records. Artists like Arctic Monkeys, Fleetwood Mac, Fontaines D.C., Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and Sam Fender were among the biggest sellers on the format.

All of this points to something deeper than a short-term spike. Rock is operating on two powerful axes at once. It has a deeply embedded catalogue that continues to generate consistent consumption, and a new wave of artists who are pushing the genre back into cultural relevance.

The industry is paying attention. On April 30th, the BPI will host an Insight Session in collaboration with Liverpool Sound City titled The Long Play: UK Rock in the Age of Streaming. The session will bring together voices from across labels, management, live, and media to explore what is sustaining rock right now, how it is adapting to streaming behaviour, and what needs to happen next for continued growth.