The UK music industry is thriving and according to industry experts one of the main figures to thank for this is Adele. The artist had a record selling year in 2011 and she became a major hit all over the world; this strongly impacted upon the amount of records sold within the UK during last year.

Adele and other British artists helped the UK music market enormously last year, the total album revenue from British artists has been pushed up to a 52.7% share. Whilst this may not seem like a large number, this is actually the highest figure since 1997.

The sales of CDs in the UK music market continued to decline during 2011 but this was offset by a 25% increase in UK music digital downloads.

The overall revenue earned from the UK music market in 2011 fell by 3% to £889 million; this makes the music market the fourth largest in the world.

The most notable British artists who helped the UK music industry figures for 2011 were Adele, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and Jessie J.

A strong performance from the music industry is expected for 2012, with experts suggesting that there will be a further increase in the amount of digital downloads occurring.

Plans for CDs to stop productions from certain record labels is still going to plan and it is likely that most record companies will move to this by the end of 2015.