Ed Sheeran is a UK singer-songwriter from Halifax, West Yorkshire, and is raised in Framlingham, Suffolk. He is born Edward Christopher Sheeran in 1991 and begins writing songs at around the age of eleven. His work spans pop, singer-songwriter, acoustic, folk, folk pop, soft rock and dance-pop.

Career

Sheeran releases the independent EP No. 5 Collaborations Project in early 2011, then signs with Asylum Records later that year. His debut album, + (Plus), reaches number one in the UK and includes his first hit single, The A Team. His second album, × (Multiply), comes out in 2014 and tops charts worldwide. It is one of the best-selling albums globally in 2015 and brings him the Brit Award for Album of the Year, while he also receives the Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year.

His single Thinking Out Loud wins the 2016 Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance. The third album, ÷ (Divide), is released in 2017 and becomes the best-selling album worldwide that year. Singles Shape of You and Castle on the Hill debut in the top two positions in several countries, and he becomes the first artist to place two songs in the US top 10 in the same week. Perfect reaches number one in the US, UK and Australia, and becomes the UK Christmas number one in 2017.

Sheeran is named Global Recording Artist of the Year for 2017. His fourth album, No.6 Collaborations Project, is a collaborative release that debuts at number one in most major markets and includes UK number-one singles I Don’t Care, Beautiful People and Take Me Back to London. He later releases = (Equals) in 2021, − (Subtract) in 2023 and Autumn Variations in 2023 under his own label, Gingerbread Man Records.

Recognition and scale

Sheeran wins Brit Awards for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act in 2012. He sells over 200 million records worldwide and has 119 million RIAA-certified units in the US. Two of his albums rank among the best-selling in UK chart history. In December 2019, he is named the Official Charts Company’s artist of the decade for combined UK album and single success in the 2010s. He is the third most-followed artist on Spotify as of July 2024.

His tours rank among the most-attended globally, and the ÷ Tour becomes the highest-grossing tour of all time as of August 2019. He is an alumnus of the National Youth Theatre and appears as himself in the 2019 film Yesterday. Time magazine includes him among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2025.

Releases

His studio albums are + (2011), × (2014), ÷ (2017), No.6 Collaborations Project (2019), = (2021), − (2023), Autumn Variations (2023) and Play (2025).