The new data appears to provide evidence that UK audiences enjoy historical content with podcast options.
This data was investigated by a team from notta.ai, an AI note taking tool that analyzed the Google search volume of Spotify's most popular podcasts using Google Keyword Planner.
The methodology ranked Top Spotify podcasts based on relevant search volumes, normalised for each of the 100,000 internet users across each geographical area, ensuring a fair comparison between regions with different population densities.
The analysis excluded podcasts that either showed insufficient data in Google Keyword Planner or registered only minimal search activity (zero or single digit search).
This filtering process allowed only podcasts with meaningful engagement levels to be included in the final ranking, allowing for a full representation of the interest of real listeners across the UK podcast landscape.
Important findings:
“The Rest Is History” dominates the UK podcast landscape with 114,400 searches each month (around 200 per 100,000 population), making it the country's most popular audio show. Despite the global domination of the American podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience” ranks third in the UK, with 53,200 searches per month, showing its powerful transatlantic appeal. British listeners prefer home-based content, showing shows that eight of the top 10 podcasts have been produced in the UK, spanning historical, political, comedy and business genres.
While podcast trends have steadily risen over the years, the history-focused podcasts capture the British imagination, appearing to rise above the celebrity news, politics and parenting genres, and claim the top spots of listeners' preferences.
Top 10 Most Popular Podcasts in the UK
“The rest is history” has a particularly high search count than both the global giant and political shows. Also, the success of three “The Rest…” in the top five spots may prefer thoughtful, contextual content from trustworthy voices that go beyond just entertainment.
Ryan Zhang, CEO and Founder of Notta.ai, commented: “The popularity of the history podcast reveals something very deep about British listening preferences.
“This historical focus extends to political content, with 'The rest being politics' securing the fourth spot in the rankings. This suggests that British listeners prefer to be contextualized with a broader historical understanding, rather than avoiding politics entirely.
“The success of both shows reveals how British audiences evaluate content that connects past patterns with current reality.
“This preference for historically informed content reflects clearly British cultural appreciation for intellectual depth, subtle storytelling, and long views of human experience.”
