The UK-CMA looks at the state of country music in the UK
The quiet time between Christmas and the New Year always provides an opportunity to reflect on the previous year and how it went. In this article UK-CMA looks back on 2025 to review the state of country music in the UK, and the question of how well UK-based artists are faring against their (mainly American) counterparts.
Let’s look at some of the data:
- Growth of country music consumption in the UK (at 10.9%) is the fastest of anywhere in the world!
- This growth is 2X faster than the overall market
- Streams of country music in Q3 2025 exceeded 1bn for only the third time in history
- In 2024 (YTD to end Q3) growth was 84.3%.
So while this looks healthy, and despite growing faster than any other type of music, as a genre, country music only has a 2.1% share of the overall music market in the UK, with pop and rock still the dominant forces.
What of UK artists?
Charts
In the Official Country Albums Chart, three albums by UK artists occupied the number 1 spot for 6 weeks.
- Rianne Downey - The Consequence of Love (3 weeks 26th October to 7th November)
- Paul Carrack – The Country Side of Paul Carrack: Vol 1 (2 weeks 11 & 18th July)
- First Time Flyers – Bound to Break (1 week 26th September)
The weekly UK radio country airplay chart (the first official country music radio chart in the UK) included a number of UK artists in their top 40 over the year. A regular was Gareth, but also appearing were First Time Flyers and Kezia Gill.
Gareth’s album, Bluebird, also made the top ten country albums of 2025 on iTunes.
Festivals
Country music festivals in the UK continued to expand, both in number and scale.
UK-CMA reviewed the artist billings from the 11 major festivals which either included a country stage or were exclusively country based to see how many UK artists were included.
The data shows that UK based artists provided the backbone of festival content with 63% (229 of 366) of the billings.
The inclusion of UK artists varies widely, with C2C and The Long Road being dominated by Overseas (primarily US) artists and only 33% and 31% respectively being from the UK.
On the other hand, festivals like Country by the Castle (100%), In It Together (95%), Together Again (94%) and the British Country Music Festival (91%) were dominated by UK acts.
For The Long Road and C2C a key statistic is whether any UK artists made the main stage. For C2C the answer is a great big NO (although Kezia Gill blew everyone away on the Spotlight Stage in the main arena). For The Long Road, Jake O’Neil, Elles Bailey, Gareth and James Bay all got the chance to show what they’ve got and hopefully build a belief that there are some good UK country artists.
Summary of the Year
There is no doubt that country music in the UK is steadily becoming mainstream, but there is still a way to go to ensure it doesn’t fade away as in previous entrances into the UK.
The audience continues to expand, there are more festivals happening and more opportunities for UK artists, BUT it is still overseas artists that get most of the headline slots. Things are improving for UK artists, with more opportunities and recognition. Main stage spots are increasing, but there is still a way to go.
The UK-CMA remains focused on helping UK artists get a larger share of the market, and helping to improve the quality of artists in their performance, songwriting and professionalism.
2026 could be a very exciting time for country music in the UK!
John Finch - UK-CMA Chair
