Just over a quarter of UK adults listen to a podcast every week. Ofcom reported in July 2026 that 27% of adults are weekly podcast listeners, based on RAJAR figures, up from 7% a decade earlier. A separate estimate from Edison Research puts the number of weekly podcast consumers aged 15 and over at about 22 million in 2025, a measure that also counts people who watch video podcasts. Here is what the latest research says about how many people listen to podcasts in the UK, who they are and how they listen, as of October 2026.
How many people listen to podcasts in the UK each week?
The two most-quoted measures give different answers because they ask different questions.
- Ofcom, using RAJAR data: 27% of UK adults listen to a podcast weekly (published July 2026). Ofcom’s 2024 research had put weekly reach at just over a fifth of adults, or about 11.7 million people, which suggests the share has kept climbing since then.
- Edison Research at SSRS: about 22 million weekly podcast consumers aged 15 and over in 2025, up from roughly 16 million in 2023 and 17 million in 2024. Edison’s definition includes watching podcasts on video platforms, not only listening to audio.
Neither figure is wrong. Part of the gap comes from different survey methods and age ranges, and part from what counts as a podcast. As video versions on YouTube and elsewhere have grown, surveys that include watching pick up a wider audience than those focused on audio listening. When you see a UK podcast statistic quoted, it is worth checking which survey it comes from and whether video is included.
Who listens: age and gender
Podcasting is no longer just a young person’s medium. Ofcom notes that early adopters around 2016 were mostly under 35, but that 45 to 54-year-olds now have above-average reach, and 13% of people aged 65 and over listen weekly. Men are slightly more likely to listen than women: 29% of men compared with 24% of women each week.
Platform choice varies sharply with age. Edison found that 68% of people who use BBC Sounds most often for podcasts are aged 55 or over, while younger audiences lean towards YouTube and Spotify.
Where people listen: YouTube, Spotify and BBC Sounds
One of the biggest shifts in the 2026 data is that YouTube has become the leading podcast platform in the UK. According to Edison’s UK Podcast Consumer 2026 report, published in July, the services weekly consumers use most often are:
- YouTube: 29%
- Spotify: 28%
- BBC Sounds: 15%
Edison describes this as the first time YouTube has come out ahead in its UK tracking. The mobile phone remains the main device, used most often by around 64% of weekly consumers, but the smart TV is rising: around one in ten now use it most often for podcasts, up from 4% in 2023.
The rise of video podcasts
Watching podcasts is now mainstream. Edison found that 72% of UK weekly podcast consumers watch video podcasts, up from 58% in 2023. Yet audio has not disappeared: Ofcom’s audio research, published in May 2026, found that 39% of podcast listeners still prefer audio-only shows, 27% prefer video and 26% let the video play in the background while they mainly listen.
Television has helped. Among people who listen to podcasts linked to TV programmes, such as companion shows for reality series, Ofcom found that 59% said the video podcasts had improved their TV viewing, and 58% said they had listened to more podcasts as a result.
Generations even disagree on what a podcast is. Research by GWI published in October 2026 found that 41.8% of Gen Z count a video recording on a video platform as a podcast, while 37.8% say a podcast must be audio only. Around 40% of Gen Z and Millennials had both watched and listened to podcasts in the past month, compared with about a quarter of Gen X.
The most popular podcasts in the UK
Edison Podcast Metrics ranks UK shows by their reach among weekly podcast consumers aged 15 and over, surveying at least 2,000 of them every quarter across all platforms. Its top ten for the second quarter of 2026, published in September, was:
- The Joe Rogan Experience
- The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
- The Rest Is Politics
- The Rest Is History
- The Rest Is Football
- The News Agents
- Uncanny
- Newscast
- That Peter Crouch Podcast
- The Rest Is Entertainment
Listening is concentrated at the top. Edison’s 2026 report found that the ten biggest shows together reach a third of UK weekly podcast consumers, and the top 29 reach half. The long tail is growing too: the 67th-largest show reached about 139,000 people a week in early 2026, almost double the figure for the same ranking in late 2023.
What listeners think about adverts, payment and AI
Ofcom’s 2024 research suggested podcast advertising is better tolerated than adverts in some other media: just over a third of regular listeners found podcast ads less intrusive, while just under a fifth disagreed. Just over a third said they would pay to subscribe to a favourite podcast. Advertisers have followed the audience, with IAB UK putting UK podcast ad spend at £90 million in 2024.
Artificial intelligence is a sensitive subject. In Edison’s 2026 survey, most UK weekly podcast consumers were comfortable with AI being used for research or brainstorming, but 85% disapproved of AI hosting a podcast, and 72% saw AI as a threat to credibility. That wariness echoes the debate over the AI-recreated Michael Parkinson podcast.
Why these figures matter
For listeners, the numbers explain why so many broadcasters, newspapers and celebrities now run podcasts, and why so many shows appear on YouTube. For anyone thinking of starting a show, they point to three practical lessons: plan for video as well as audio, think about which platform your target age group prefers, and accept that breaking into the top of the charts is hard because attention is concentrated among a few big names. The growing long tail, however, shows there is room for well-made niche shows to build real audiences.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of UK adults listen to podcasts?
Ofcom reported in July 2026 that 27% of UK adults listen to a podcast each week, based on RAJAR data.
Is YouTube the biggest podcast platform in the UK?
According to Edison Research’s 2026 report, yes, narrowly: 29% of UK weekly podcast consumers use YouTube most often, against 28% for Spotify and 15% for BBC Sounds.
What is the most popular podcast in the UK?
In Edison Podcast Metrics’ ranking for the second quarter of 2026, The Joe Rogan Experience had the highest weekly reach in the UK, followed by The Diary Of A CEO and The Rest Is Politics.
Why do different surveys give different podcast figures?
They use different age ranges, methods and definitions. Some measure audio listening only, while others include watching video podcasts, which produces a larger audience estimate.
Sources: Ofcom, Podcasts, pay TV and public service broadcasting: top trends (29 July 2026); Ofcom, Top trends from our latest audio listening research (20 May 2026); Ofcom, Top podcast listening trends from our research (30 September 2024); Edison Research at SSRS, The UK Podcast Consumer 2026 (July 2026); Edison Research at SSRS via Podnews, The UK Podcast Consumer 2026 (17 July 2026); SSRS, The Top 25 Podcasts in the UK for Q2 2026 (3 September 2026); PodcastingToday, Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X disagree on what counts as a podcast (24 October 2026); IAB UK via Podnews, IAB UK: podcast ad market grows 8% in the UK (29 April 2025).
