Ed Sheeran’s Net Worth: His Music, Screen Appearances And Tours

Born on 17 February 1991 in the quaint English town of Framlingham, Ed Sheeran is today a global musical phenomenon who has become one of the richest artists by net worth on the back of the stupendous successes of his songs and albums.

Sheeran is a genre-bending troubadour, effortlessly blending folk, pop, R&B, and even a touch of hip-hop to create a sound that’s all his own. His vocals are a warm embrace, raw and honest, carrying a vulnerability that resonates deeply with listeners. His soulful voice and relatable lyrics have captivated millions of music lovers around the world.

The four-time Grammy Award winner began his musical journey at a very young age. He started with local open mic nights then moved to busking on the streets of London. His experiences and his observations were poured into his writings, which translated into seven studio albums, numerous singles and other compositions.

The music catapulted him to superstardom. Songs such as “The A Team,” “Thinking Out Loud,” and “Shape of You” topped charts and filled the stadiums where Ed Sheeran performed on his tours.

On the personal front, Sheeran has been married to Cherry Seaborn since 2018. The couple, who have two children, knew each other as kids but started dating after reuniting in 2015 in New York City.

Despite his worldwide fame, Sheeran doesn’t appear like a typical pop star. The ginger-haired singer, who has a knack for weaving storytelling into his music, looks more like the boy next door who can easily blend into groups. He maintains a particularly noteworthy low profile.

The only exception is his collection of wristwatches, which includes the likes of Rolex Yacht-Master Ref. 116655, Richard Mille RM 38-01 Tourbillon G-Sensor Quartz TPT, and Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711/1300A and numerous others.

Seaborn, too, has no social media presence and stays out of the spotlight. The couple live in a USD 4.7 million estate in rural Suffolk, but that is the only property that Sheeran is known to own.

As for Ed Sheeran, he is one of the most followed music artists on Instagram with over 46 million followers. He shares glimpses of his work, everyday life and friendships with other celebrities, such as actor Chris Hemsworth and music legend Sir Elton John.

A look at Ed Sheeran’s musical career and overall net worth

Albums released by Ed Sheeran and chart history

Ed Sheeran has released seven studio albums to date. A unique feature of his discography is that most of his albums simply have a mathematical symbol for a name and none, except his debut album,  has ever carried his face as a poster.

Explaining why he does so, Ed Sheeran told New Zealand’s Project NZ in 2022, “The thing with the albums is I, very early on in my career, decided I didn’t… I don’t mean to play it down, but I do have a face for the radio. And I was like, ‘I don’t really want to be a poster boy ever.’ I don’t want to be, like, selling my record being like, ‘Hey, how you doing?’”

“So I had sort of figured out a way, I was like, ‘I’m going to do it with colours and symbols.’ So I was like, ‘I’d love to get to a point that there’s a billboard of just red with an equals sign, or green with a multiply, or blue with a divide, or orange with a plus, and people go, ‘Oh, Ed’s got an album coming out,’” he added.

His debut studio album was titled + (pronounced Plus). It was released in 2011. Subsequently, Sheeran released 2014’s × (pronounced Multiply), 2017’s ÷ (pronounced Divide), 2021’s = (pronounced Equals) and 2023’s − (pronounced Subtract).

Apart from the mathematically named albums, Ed Sheeran has also released two traditionally named studio albums: No.6 Collaborations Project (2019) and Autumn Variations (2023).

Of the seven, four peaked at No.1 on Billboard 200. These are Multiply, Divide, Equals and No.6 Collaborations Project.

Sheeran also has two No.1 hits on Billboard Hot 100 — his iconic songs “Shape of You” and “Perfect,” both from the album Divide.

In August 2017, “Shape Of You” became the song with the most weeks in the Top 10 in Billboard Hot 100 history with 33 weeks. A record at the time for any artist, it has since been surpassed by music icons such as Dua Lipa, Post Malone and The Weeknd, the last of whom now holds the record at 57 weeks.

On the other hand, all seven studio albums by Ed Sheeran have charted at No.1 on the UK’s Official Albums Charts. A total of 14 of his songs have been UK No.1s on Official Singles Chart and 42 were listed in the top 10.

In December 2019, eight years after the release of his debut album, Sheeran was named  “UK’s Official Number 1 Artist of the Decade” by the Official Charts Company. At the time, he also took the  “Official Chart Record Breaker Award” with the most No.1 singles and albums as well as spending the most weeks (79) in the top spot between 2010 and 2019.

How much has Ed Sheeran earned from concert tours?

Like other famous musicians in the world, Sheeran has also earned millions from his concert tours. He is reportedly one of the best live performers of his generation. Generally holding a one-man show, he is famed for using a loop pedal to layer vocals and guitar lines.

According to Forbes, his ÷ Tour (pronounced Divide Tour) grossed around USD 775 million between March 2017 and August 2019 — the period of the tour. This earned him the No.23rd  spot on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid celebrities in 2020, for earning USD 64 million in the year in consideration.

It was a remarkable feat at the time. Sheeran’s ÷ Tour ended the eight-year reign of U2 360° Tour by famed Irish rock band U2 as the highest-grossing concert tour of all time.

Sheeran’s record was broken by Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in 2023. But John’s feat was too short-lived.

Music superstar Taylor Swift eventually created history when her 2023 concert The Eras Tour ended the year with a total gross of USD 1 billion, according to estimates from tour tracker Pollstar.

Sheeran personally loves touring. In an interview with The Guardian in 2014, he said “I’m in the music industry to play live. That’s why I make records, that’s why I do radio interviews, that’s why I do Amazon events, that’s why I put things on Spotify. Having recorded music is fantastic, but playing live is where I buzz the most.”

The English singer-songwriter is currently on his +–=÷× Tour (pronounced The Mathematics Tour) since April 2022.

It is scheduled to end in Cyprus in September 2024, after performances in multiple Asian countries including Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India.

The tour is in support of his fifth studio album ‘Equals’ and his sixth studio album ‘Subtract.’ By July 2023, the tour had grossed an estimated USD 417 million. The number is set to rise exponentially by the time the tour ends.

Though income from his earlier concert tours is not clear, the total earnings of ÷ Tour and +–=÷× Tour comes to around USD 1.2 billion.

How much did Ed Sheeran receive from Spotify in royalties?

Streaming giant Spotify is a major source of revenue for music artists. The exact details of how much musicians earn as royalties are not clear, but reports suggest that the platform plays artists somewhere between USD 0.003 and USD 0.005 per stream. This comes down to a revenue split of around 70:30 between the artist or rights holders and Spotify.

In 2014, The Guardian reported that Spotify’s average per-stream rate is between USD 0.006 and USD 0.0084.

At the time, Sheeran told The Guardian, “I know a lot of artists are a bit iffy about it, and to be honest, I did get a royalty cheque from Spotify that was about GBP 4 (around USD 6.5). It’s one of those things, but for me, the more iPods, phones and computers that I’m on, the better, because I just want to play. That’s what I enjoy.” 

For Ed Sheeran at the time, the albums Plus and Multiply had generated 435 million and 433 million streams, respectively. The Guardian estimated that it would come to a total payout of over USD 6.2 million for his label and publisher.

Cut to January 2020, Sheeran’s stature as a musician had grown by leaps and bounds. His song, “Shape of You,” had by then earned over USD 8.4 million in Spotify royalties. In December 2021, Spotify announced that “Shape of You” had become the first song to hit three billion streams on the music streaming platform.

It is estimated that Sheeran has made an average of around USD 9 million per song on Spotify, which hailed “Shape of You” as the most-streamed song of the decade in 2019. 

Songs written for other artists

Ed Sheeran not only pens his own songs but has also written songs for other famous artists. One of his most famous contributions was co-writing Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself” with the Canadian singer and American record producer Benny Blanco.

Part of Bieber’s fourth studio album Purpose (2015), the song peaked at No.1 across continents. It was listed at the top on multiple Billboard charts as well as on Official Charts in the UK.

Sheeran later said that the song would not have been popular had he sung it.

“People always say, ‘Why didn’t you keep it?’ And to be honest, he [Bieber] was on such a roll at that point that I think it wouldn’t have been as big if I’d sung it,” he said at the Audacy Beach Festival in 2021, according to iHeart Radio.

“It was so massive for him … I think it’s his biggest song … anywhere in the world, if I picked up a guitar and played that, they’d be like ‘Oh my God, you wrote that!’” added Sheeran.

Other artists for whom Sheeran has written include One Direction, Hilary Duff, Rita Ora, Westlife, and Alicia Keys, among others.

Perhaps, two of his most famous contributions for other artists are the songs “Make It Right” and “Permission to Dance” for the universally acclaimed K-pop boy band BTS. The former was released digitally in 2019 and was part of BTS’ EP Map of the Soul: Persona.

“Permission to Dance,” on the other hand, has been a rage in music, with many listing it as one of the best BTS songs ever. A stand-alone single, it peaked at No.1 on Billboard Hot 100.

The song was co-written by Sheeran with rock band Snow Patrol’s singer Johnny McDaid and frequent collaborator Steve Mac. At that time, BTS and Sheeran hadn’t even met.

“Ed sent us this amazingly good song, and as soon as we listened to it we just couldn’t resist it. We thought it went really well with our image too, so we just went with it,” J-Hope told Entertainment Weekly over Zoom in June 2021, as the rest of the septet expressed their desire to meet the English music icon.

Ed Sheeran in TV and films

Ed Sheeran is known for making cameo appearances either as himself or as minor characters in movies and TV shows. Some of these include the Australian soap opera Home and Away (2015), American sitcom Undateable (2015) and American films Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016), Yesterday (2019), and Red Notice (2021). He also played the recurring role of Sir Cormac in the historical fiction drama The Bastard Executioner (2015).

But perhaps his most famous cameo was as the unnamed Lannister soldier in HBO’s epic Game of Thrones in 2017. Sheeran appears in season 7, episode 1, titled “Dragonstone.” He is seen singing the song “Hands of Gold,” originally penned by George R. R. Martin in his books when Arya Stark comes across him.

The show’s creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff had later said that Sheeran’s cameo was meant to be a surprise for Maisie Williams, who played Arya in the series. Williams is a fan of the singer.

Even though Ed Sheeran has made quite a few appearances on screen, there is no information on his salary or any other earnings from the TV shows or films.

What is the exact net worth of Ed Sheeran?

Ed Sheeran was mentioned by the Sunday Times Rich List in May 2023 as one of the richest people in the UK by net worth, even though his fortune wasn’t enough to qualify him for the main Rich List issued by the publication.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List, Ed Sheeran’s net worth was GBP 300 million (around USD 384 million). He was, therefore, the seventh-richest person in the UK under the age of 35. He was just GBP 50 million (around 64 million) short of the cut-off required to feature in the main Rich List at the time.

Part of the credit for his wealth was given to his sixth album Subtract, which sold like hotcakes following its release.

(Hero and Featured images: Ed Sheeran/@EdSheeranMusic/Facebook)

This story first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is Ed Sheeran’s net worth in 2024?

Ed Sheeran’s exact net worth in 2024 is not clear. However, he had a net worth of around USD 384 million in May 2023 according to Sunday Times Rich List.