The

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

is a music chart compiled by the

Official Charts Company The Official Charts (legal name: The Official UK Charts Company Limited) is a British inter-professional organization that compiles various "official" record charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. In the United Kingdom, its charts inc ...

(OCC) that calculates the best-selling artist

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...

s of the week in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. Since 2005, the chart has been based on the sales of both

physical Physical may refer to: * Physical examination, a regular overall check-up with a doctor * ''Physical'' (Olivia Newton-John album), 1981 ** "Physical" (Olivia Newton-John song) * ''Physical'' (Gabe Gurnsey album) * "Physical" (Alcazar song) (2004) * ...

and

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals ** Digital camera, which captures and stores digital ...

albums, on the condition that the album was available in both formats. In January 2007, the rules were changed so that legal downloads of all albums, irrespective of whether a physical copy was available, were eligible to chart. Further changes occurred in February 2015 when

audio streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

was included for the first time. On 11 December 2019, the OCC announced their list of the top 100 best-selling albums between January 2010 and December 2019. The best-selling album of the decade is

Adele Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (, ; born 5 May 1988), professionally known by the mononym Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a rec ...

's '' 21'', which sold 6 million following its release in January 2011. Adele is also one of two artists to achieve three million-selling albums since 2010 with '' 19'' (released in 2008 but sold over a million copies since 2010), ''21'' and '' 25''. The other is

Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran (; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently re ...

with '' +'', '' x'' and '' ÷''. Sheeran is also the only artist to feature in the top 10 three times.

Best-selling albums since 2010

Released before 2010; only sales from 2010 onwards included

Best-selling debut albums

Notes

References

{{UK Music Charts

2000s File:2000s decade montage3.png, From top left, clockwise: The World Trade Center on fire and the Statue of Liberty during the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the euro enters into European currency in 2002; a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled during th ...

2000s (UK) British record charts

Best-selling albums since 2010

Best-selling debut albums

See also

Notes

References