The Official Top 40 Biggest Songs of 2022

Harry Styles claimed the UK's Official biggest song of 2022 with As It Was, the Official Charts Company can confirm today.

The lead single from Harry's third solo album Harry's House shifted 1.57 million chart units since its release in April 2022 to the year-end. As It Was also holds the distinction of being the UK's longest-running Number 1 of 2022, managing an epic 10 weeks at the top of the Official Singles Chart. The synth-pop track became Harry's second UK chart-topper, following 2017's debut single Sign Of The Times.

As It Was also leads the pack as the most-streamed song of the year, totalling over 180.9 million audio and video streams, and best-selling song physically and digitally with 65,000 copies sold. It also means Harry Styles lands the end-of-year chart double too, as Harry's House is crowned the UK biggest album of 2022.

MORE: The Official Top 40 biggest albums of 2022

Harry leads an all-British takeover of the Top 10 biggest tracks of the year in the UK, marking the first time ever that all ten of the year's most successful singles were released by, or featured, British artists - including Harry, Cat Burns, Scottish DJs LF SYSTEM, Sam Fender, Glass Animals and Kate Bush. It's the first time such a clean sweep for British music has happened since the music industry began publishing year-end sales charts more than 50 years ago.

See where Harry Styles' songs and albums charted.

2022 also continued the growth of streaming as the dominant way UK music fans consume their favourite songs and artists. The BPI calculates that more than 3 billion audio streams were generated on average every week in 2022, compared to around 1.3 billion each week five years earlier.

The UK’s audio streaming market has grown to meet this demand - more doubling from 68.1 billion to 159.3 billion audio streams and was last year over 40 times bigger than in 2012 (3.7bn audio streams). It now takes, on average, 1.3 million audio streams to break into the Official Singles Chart Top 40 and a combined 7 million audio and video streams to land a UK Number 1 single.

In second place is Ed Sheeran with 2021's biggest song, Bad Habits, which gobbled up 1.18 million chart units throughout 2022, proving Ed's reach is just as dynamic and powerful as ever. This year also saw Ed break a major Official Charts record - becoming the first artist ever to have four albums chart inside the Official Albums Chart Top 10 for a year or more.

Rounding out the Top 5 we have Ed once again, this time teaming up with Afrobeats superstar Fireboy DML on Peru (3), breakout BRITs Rising Star nominee Cat Burns with her Number 2-peaking single Go (4), and Ed's third entry, the scintillating former Number 1 single Shivers (5).

2022 also saw the year of an extraordinary renaissance for one of Britain's greatest pop stars. Kate Bush reaped the rewards of an intelligently placed sync of her 1985 single Running Up That Hill (6) in the fourth season of Netflix's landmark series Stranger Things. The song resonated with a new generation, enabling it to (finally) reach Number 1 in the UK, 35 years after its initial release, breaking a trio of Official Charts records in the process.

The extraordinary story of Running Up That Hill's renaissance and UK chart history

Also earning a place in the 2022 Top 10, we have Glass Animals' TikTok anthem Heat Waves (7), Lost Frequencies and Calum Scott's slow-burning hit Where Are You Now (8), LF SYSTEM's breakout Number 1 Afraid To Feel (9) and Sam Fender's first UK Top 10 single, Seventeen Going Under (10).

The cast of Encanto score two of the Top 40, with their record-breaking Number 1 smash We Don't Talk About Bruno landing at Number 11, and Surface Pressure finishing at Number 39.

More 2022 chart-toppers to make the year-end list include Starlight by Dave (14), abcdefu by Gayle (17), Unholy by Sam Smith & Kim Petras (31), and Forget Me by Lewis Capaldi (40).

2022's fastest-selling singles

As It Was also lays claim to another title this year - that of 2022's biggest first week for a single in the UK. In its opening seven days, As It Was pushed past 94,000 chart units, more than any other track this year.

As for the fastest-seller in its first week based on pure sales, that honour goes to LadBaby's record-breaking Official Christmas Number 1, Food Aid. The charity track totalled over 59,000 first-week copies, becoming the most-downloaded song of the year in the process too.

Breakout hits

Despite releasing her single Go originally in 2020, it was two years later that Cat Burns experienced the most extraordinary breakout year with the track peaking at Number 2 on the Official Singles Chart, and Cat getting nominated for the BRITs Rising Star Award and placing fourth on the BBC's Sound Of...2023 poll.

Dance music was also back in a big way this year, spearheaded by two rising UK acts who scored their first UK Number 1 singles; LF SYSTEM's Afraid To Feel (9) and Eliza Rose & Interplanetary Criminal's B.O.T.A (Baddest Of Them All) (24) rank as two of the greatest successes of the year.

Other major dance releases include Irish duo Belters Only's Make Me Feel Good ft. Jazzy (12), Where Did You Go by Jax Jons ft. MNEK (16), Australian DJ Luude's hit Down Under with Colin Hay (23), and I'm Good (Blue) by David Guetta & Bebe Rexha (25) which spent a week at Number 1, netting Bebe her first chart-topper in the UK.

MORE: Official Charts' Artists To Watch for 2023

Official Top 40 biggest songs of 2022

©2023 Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.
Compiled using physical and digital sales combined with streaming figures.

Official Top 40 most-streamed songs of 2022

©2023 Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.
Compiled using audio and video streams.

Official Top 40 best-selling songs of 2022

©2023 Official Charts Company. All rights reserved. 
Compiled using physical and digital download sales only.

MORE: The Official Top 40 biggest songs of 2023 so far

MORE: The Official Top 40 biggest albums of 2023 so far