09 SEPT 2026 · rts.fm editorial
16% of Britons Are Listening to More Music, Data Shows
New YouGov data breaks down exactly who's listening to more music in Britain, by age, gender and discovery method, and Gen Z dominates every column.
Sixteen percent sounds like a small number until you see who it's made of. New polling data from YouGov Profiles, drawn from a rolling sample of British adults surveyed between September 2025 and September 2026, finds that 16 percent of Britons are listening to more music than they were a year ago. Fifteen percent are listening to less. The remaining 65 percent say their listening habits haven't changed at all, according to YouGov's own analysis. Mixmag picked up the figures from a poll YouGov puts at over 16,000 respondents, and the topline number undersells what's actually happening underneath it.
Break the 16 percent down by age and the picture stops looking like a modest national uptick and starts looking like a generational handover. Half of everyone who reported listening to more music is Gen Z, a cohort that makes up just 17 percent of the adult population. Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers are all listening to more music too, but nowhere near proportionally. This is a report on where that gap actually sits, who's driving it, and what it means for an industry that still prices, programs and markets music as though listening habits were flat.
What Did YouGov Actually Find?
The headline split is straightforward: most Britons say nothing has changed, a substantial minority are listening more, and a slightly smaller group are listening less. Eighty-four percent of adults say they enjoy listening to music at all, which makes the 16 percent of increased listeners a meaningful slice of an already music-positive population, not people discovering music for the first time.
| Listening trend (last 12 months) | Share of British adults |
|---|---|
| Listening to more music | 16% |
| Listening to less music | 15% |
| No change | 65% |
| Enjoy listening to music (any amount) | 84% |
Source: YouGov Profiles, a 52-week rolling dataset covering adults 18+ in Great Britain, weighted by age, gender, region, education and social grade.
Who's Actually Listening to More Music?
This is where the topline number falls apart into something far more lopsided. YouGov's age breakdown compares each generation's share of the "listening more" group against that generation's share of the overall adult population, and the gap for Gen Z is the whole story.
| Generation | Share of "listening more" group | Share of adult population | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gen Z | 50% | 17% | ~2.9x |
| Millennials | 23% | 27% | ~0.85x |
| Gen X | 16% | 27% | ~0.59x |
| Baby Boomers+ | 11% | 29% | ~0.38x |
Gen Z is listening to more music at nearly three times its share of the adult population, while every older generation is under-indexed, meaning they're listening to more music at a lower rate than their size in the population would predict. Gender skews the same direction, though less dramatically: men make up 54 percent of the increased-listening group against 48 percent of the population, women 46 percent against 52 percent.
How Are People Finding the Music They're Listening to More Of?
YouGov also asked the increased-listening group how they're actually discovering new music, and the answer is a genuine mix rather than one platform dominating outright.
| Discovery method | Share of increased listeners |
|---|---|
| Streaming service recommendations | 53% |
| Friends and family | 42% |
| Social media and blogs | 41% |
| Radio and music TV channels | 40% |
| Exploring genres and playlists | 33% |
| Movie and game soundtracks | 31% |
| Concerts and live performances | 20% |
Algorithmic recommendations lead, but barely over word of mouth, and radio still out-performs both movie/game soundtracks and live shows as a discovery channel. That last point matters more than it looks: for a station built on live-streamed sets rather than a recommendation engine, radio holding at 40 percent among the exact demographic driving Britain's listening growth is a direct signal, not background noise.
Why Is Gen Z Driving This on Its Own?
The generational skew here tracks with what's already showing up in US streaming data. Luminate's H1 2026 report found Dance/Electronic was the fastest-growing genre in the US by streaming share, and most of that growth came from new music rather than catalog nostalgia, the same pattern YouGov is describing for UK listening overall. Hard techno's American surge past 180 BPM is a genre-specific version of the same story: a younger audience actively seeking out faster, more extreme sounds rather than settling into whatever their parents already liked.
None of this is really about music becoming more popular in the abstract. It's about a generation that grew up with a phone in hand, unlimited catalog access, and zero friction between hearing something in a TikTok clip and adding it to a playlist. Discovery got faster, so listening went up, and the generation that came of age inside that pipeline is the one showing it in the numbers.
What This Means for Independent Radio and Labels
An audience that's actively increasing consumption, skewed toward listeners in their teens and twenties, discovering roughly as much through radio as through soundtracks and live shows combined, is exactly the audience an artist-run station has spent two decades building programming for. RTS.FM has streamed underground DJ sets continuously since 2006, long before "Gen Z listening habits" was a research category anyone tracked, and the station's own most-watched archive video is a set recorded in 2009 that's still pulling views from listeners who weren't born when it aired.
The wider independent label picture backs this up too: independent labels now hold a 44 percent share of the global recorded music market, the highest that figure has ever been. A growing, younger listening base and a growing independent sector aren't a coincidence sitting next to each other, they're the same shift showing up in two different datasets.
quick wins
- 16% of British adults are listening to more music than a year ago, 15% listen to less, and 65% report no change, per YouGov Profiles data covering September 2025 to September 2026.
- Gen Z makes up 50% of the "listening more" group despite being just 17% of the adult population, an index of roughly 2.9x.
- Every other generation is under-indexed: Millennials sit at 0.85x, Gen X at 0.59x, and Baby Boomers+ at 0.38x.
- Among people listening to more music, 53% credit streaming recommendations for discovery, but 42% credit friends and family and 40% credit radio, both close behind.
- 84% of British adults say they enjoy listening to music at all, meaning the "listening more" 16% is growth within an already music-positive population.
FAQ
How many British adults are listening to more music than before?
16 percent of British adults say they're listening to more music than they were 12 months ago, according to YouGov Profiles data covering September 2025 through September 2026. 15 percent say they're listening to less, and 65 percent report no change.
Which age group is driving the increase in music listening?
Gen Z. Despite making up only 17 percent of the British adult population, Gen Z accounts for 50 percent of everyone who reported listening to more music, an index of roughly 2.9 times their population share. Every older generation, from Millennials to Baby Boomers, is under-indexed by comparison.
How are people discovering the music they're listening to more of?
Streaming service recommendations lead at 53 percent, followed closely by friends and family at 42 percent, social media and blogs at 41 percent, and radio or music TV channels at 40 percent. Genre and playlist exploration, movie and game soundtracks, and live performances trail behind those top four.
What was YouGov's sample size and methodology?
YouGov drew on its Profiles dataset, a 52-week rolling sample of British adults aged 18 and over, weighted by age, gender, region, education and social grade. Mixmag's coverage of the same data cited a poll of over 16,000 respondents.
Is this trend specific to Britain, or is it part of a wider pattern?
The UK data lines up with what's showing up in US streaming figures. Luminate's H1 2026 report found Dance/Electronic was the US's fastest-growing genre by streaming share, driven mostly by new releases rather than catalog listening, the same new-music-led pattern YouGov describes among Britain's increased listeners.