The Top 40 biggest songs and albums of the decade by female artists

Friday March 8 is International Women's Day, and to mark the occasion we look at the highest achieving female artists in the UK chart this decade.

Since 2010, the Top 100 singles led by female artists have notched up over 125 million combined sales – which includes physical, downloads sales and streams – and the Top 100 female artist albums account for 65.5 million combined sales.

But who's sold the most?

It should come as no surprise – unless you've not been near a radio or TV in the last decade or so – that Adele tops both our Top 40 rundowns. The London-born singer had had a hugely successful decade all over the world, and on home turf, she has a tally of 10.5 million, with her second album 21 accounting for 5.13 million of that grand total, to be the biggest album by a female artist not only this decade, but of all time. Her third album 25 is in second place, while her debut 19, from 2008, has still managed to shift 1.8 million since 2010.

MORE: British female artists with the most Number 1 singles

On the singles' Top 40, Adele reigns supreme with ballad Someone Like You thanks to 1.6 million downloads and 69.3 million streams. Three more Adele tunes make the Top 40: Hello (3), Rolling in the Deep (13), and Make You Feel My Love (30).

Emeli Sande's debut Our Version of Events is third biggest album, with combined sales of 2.4 million, and the highest of four Rihanna albums in the Top 40 of the decade is in fourth place – it's Loud, with just over two million. There are four Rihanna-led songs in the singles' Top 40 too, with 2011's We Found Love the highest, on 1.42m downloads and 49.7m streams.

Sia does pretty well in the singles' Top 10, with Cheap Thrills, second overall, notching up 162 million streams and 536,000 downloads, and Chandelier in sixth.

Dua Lipa's 2017 Number 1 New Rules is the most streamed song of the decade by a female artist, with 169.9 million plays in the UK, and is the fourth biggest song overall, including its 245,000 downloads. Dua also appears again at 12 with her 2018 Number 1 One Kiss. 

Jess Glynne has had seven Number 1s this decade, as both lead and featured artist, but her biggest song is These Days with Rudimental and Macklemore in 19th, while Ariana's biggest song of the decade is One Last Time in 22nd place.

The oldest song to make the singles' Top 40 is Mariah Carey's million-selling festive fave All I Want for Christmas is You, in 16th place, while Little Mix score three entries on this rundown, with Black Magic the highest.

The Official Top 40 biggest songs by female artists this decade:

©2019 Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.

 And here are the biggest albums by female artists this decade:

©2019 Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.