13.01.2026: In UK Music’s This Is Music report into the financial health of the sector, we explored the artist development cycle, from global trends and the grassroots sector, to the challenges facing the next generation of talent.

Artist development is not an exact science with no one fixed method or metric to achieve and measure success. Since 2020, there has been a shift in the market, with fewer debut albums by UK artists making it into the year-end top 1000 album charts, as artists are taking longer to achieve breakthrough success. Some of the factors influencing this trend are global, and there is evidence of similar trends in other markets, most notably the USA. The Artist Development Cycle is easily misunderstood. This section describes the challenges, the context, how the industry is innovating, and where government can help.

The Challenges

What constitutes “breaking” is open to interpretation. In broad terms, it means artists who achieve a breakthrough success in their careers. Albums remain a focal point as substantial bodies of work and markers in an artist’s career. The chart below shows the number of debut albums by UK artists in the UK top 100 year-end album chart since 2015. This is a crude metric, but it illustrates a clear pattern. Between 2015 and 2019, thirty debut albums by UK artists featured in the year-end charts. These included albums by Dua Lipa, Stormzy, Lewis Capaldi, Sam Fender, and Mabel. Between 2020 and 2024, ten debut albums by UK artists featured, including albums by Wet Leg, Central Cee (mixtape), Celeste, RAYE, and The Last Dinner Party.

The Growth of a Catalogue

The number of new albums by all artists (new and established, UK and international) has also declined significantly since 2015, as the chart below illustrates. In the five years from 2020 to 2024, there were 194 new albums in the year-end chart, compared to 412 new albums between 2015 and 2019, a decline of more than half. This is because older albums, including catalogue and greatest hits, are occupying a greater share of the market than ever before, including the album charts.

This change is a product of streaming, which now accounts for more than 68% of recorded music revenues in the UK and globally. Streaming rewards consumption over purchase. While purchase generates value in one upfront transaction, the value in consumption is spread over time, which could explain why so many catalogue titles are prominent in the charts and why it now takes longer for new artists to build profile. The move from physical record stores to digital and streaming has also boosted catalogue.

While it has never been easier to make and release music, it has never been more difficult for new artists to be heard and for music creators to build careers. Artists are not only competing against other new releases, but also against the greatest music ever recorded from anywhere in the world.

Global Trends

The USA has also seen a slowdown in the time it takes for new artists to achieve a breakthrough in their careers. According to music industry directory ROSTR, the time taken from first release to nomination for the Best New Artist category at the 2025 Grammys has increased from around 2 years in 2001 to 7.8 years in 2025. This year’s nominations include Sabrina Carpenter (10.8 years), RAYE (8.3 years), Chappell Roan (7.2 years), and Doechii (6.3 years).

It now takes longer for artists to build audiences. Music is released globally on digital platforms from day one, which means artists and their teams must decide how to focus their time and resources to grow domestic and international audiences simultaneously against a backdrop of increased competition and overwhelming consumer choice. The UK is a small, traditionally fast-paced market, and this previously gave the UK an advantage. Artists could go from grassroots to national prominence quickly, and this momentum often ignited international success. Oasis went from debut single in 1994 to playing two nights at Knebworth in 1996, with two multi-platinum albums along the way. Streaming revenues have doubled since 2018. This has changed the dynamics of the global music market. A longer-term, international approach is now required from day one. This shift coincided with more headwinds for UK artists and music creators.

Firstly, the impact of the pandemic made it very difficult for emerging artists to promote themselves during 2020 and 2021. Secondly, leaving the EU in 2020 meant UK artists and music creators lost frictionless access to the EU market, placing them at a considerable disadvantage to both European and American talent, who have free access to much larger markets (EU and USA) on their doorstep. Thirdly, increased costs and bureaucracy for UK artists and music creators entering the USA further restricts access to the biggest international market of them all. This creates greater barriers to UK artists scaling their careers internationally, not only in terms of live performance, but also streaming, which still requires artists to be physically active in international markets to promote themselves and build traction.

The Grassroots Ecosystem

Coinciding with a changing and increasingly competitive global landscape and barriers to key international markets, UK music creators must also navigate increasing challenges within the grassroots ecosystem at home. Music creators invest heavily in their own careers. Live performance can be a crucial source of income for artists especially both in terms of fees and public performance royalties for songwriters, but many touring artists are increasingly unable to make performing live financially viable, and this has various knock-on impacts. The situation is especially acute for self-releasing and self-funded artists, as brownbear discusses in his case study.

The challenge at grassroots level is something UK Music highlighted in Victoria Canal’s case study in our 2024 report, where she contrasted the prohibitive cost of touring the UK with touring similar venues in Europe and the USA. One means of cutting costs is to cut the number of musicians on stage. Artists, especially at grassroots level, often face the difficult dilemma of playing a cut-down set with a reduced band or playing to a backing track, or making a loss on the show. This has a knock-on impact. Music creators can occupy several roles at once, so a backing musician in one band could be using the income they earn from that work to invest in their own artist project. If an artist makes cuts to their band, a musician not only loses paid work, but also investment funds for other projects.

With grassroots under pressure to this extent, the foundations on which artist development in the UK is based are in danger of crumbling. A House of Commons Culture, Media, and Sport Committee Review was announced in 2025 to investigate these issues as part of a fan-led review of live music. This follows a House of Commons inquiry into grassroots music venues published in 2024, and the Music Fan Voice report which was backed by the Metro Mayors and published in 2025. These two published reports emphasise the importance of a healthy grassroots ecosystem in building sustainable careers and businesses.

The Music Fan Voice report highlighted the central role that the artist-fan relationship plays in driving live music consumption. The House of Commons report noted that “artists are collectively the sector’s biggest employers,” supporting supply chain costs and personnel, including session musicians and road crew, in addition to business partners such as managers and agents. The cost of touring is a major issue for artists, but challenges in the grassroots ecosystem impact all music creators including musicians, songwriters, and producers.

Music Creators and the Artist Development Process

Featured artists often work as non-featured performers, songwriters, and producers separately from their own artist projects, and many music creators work primarily in these individual roles. Music creators occupy varied roles, meaning they experience the same challenges in different ways. Songwriters are often integral to the artist development process, either co-writing with artists or working to a brief. Their contributions are usually speculative, rather than receiving a daily or hourly rate for their time. Payment is dependent on royalties, and in the streaming age, there have been challenges for some songwriters, and these challenges can be more acute amongst those songwriters who are not performing artists or have alternative means of income.

Meanwhile, musicians and non-featured performers have faced cuts to touring work, not only at grassroots level, as described above, but also at mid-level, which is also feeling the pressure, resulting in cuts to the number of musicians, road crew, and support acts.

Recording budgets have also stagnated, negatively impacting musicians, non-featured performers, and producers. To alleviate some of these concerns, a government backed set of principles announced in July 2025 by the BPI and AIM, with agreements from all three major labels, introduces a set of measures to benefit specific groups of UK music creators. This includes schemes to reinvigorate legacy artist careers and earnings and record labels paying per diems and expenses to songwriters and composers they invite to label-hosted writing sessions. As well as the principles, an increase in session fees to musicians was agreed separately.

Record producers often play a key role, particularly when working with unsigned artists, which ordinarily can be an extremely risky venture for individual producers. However, producers no longer have the financial flexibility to take the risk to find, develop, and invest in new talent. This is because such work is speculative and subsidised by paid work elsewhere, but rising costs and restricted budgets, restrict producer’s ability to undertake speculative work.

The potential closure of recording studios, an important source of income, training, and development for everyone involved in the making of recorded music is a major threat to the talent pipeline. According to the Music Producers Guild (MPG), 50% of the UK’s remaining studios face a threat of closure.18 Collectively, music creators invest in one another and in themselves. Featured artists invest in their work, but so do producers, songwriters, and session musicians, which can also be an investment in their own careers. The challenges are mounting, but with smart investment and support the UK will continue to be an incubator for world beating talent.

You can read our This Is Music report in full here.

Raye photo: John Marshall