The Framlingham kid who wrote his way to a record-breaking tour

Ed Sheeran was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, in 1991 and spent his earliest years in Hebden Bridge. When he was four the family moved to Framlingham in Suffolk, where he went to school. His father John was a curator at Cartwright Hall in Bradford, his mother Imogen worked at Manchester City Art Gallery, and his older brother Matthew became a composer. Sheeran himself began writing songs around the age of eleven.

The start was independent. In early 2011 he released the extended play No.5 Collaborations Project on his own, and later that year he signed with Asylum Records. His debut album, + (“Plus”), topped the UK Albums Chart and featured “The A Team”. The follow-up, × (“Multiply”), became the second-best-selling album worldwide of 2015 and won the Brit Award for British Album of the Year. Its third single, “Thinking Out Loud”, won two Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, and that same year he set up his own label, Gingerbread Man Records.

Then came ÷ (“Divide”) in 2017, the best-selling album worldwide that year. Its joint lead singles, “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill”, broke records in several countries by debuting in the top two positions on the charts, and “Perfect” reached number one in the US, Australia and the UK. He was named Global Recording Artist of the Year, and the ÷ Tour became the highest-grossing of all time in August 2019. Along the way came collaboration albums, among them the No.6 Collaborations Project in 2019, and acting, including a role as himself in the film Yesterday.

Sheeran has sold 200 million records and has seven UK number-one singles, among them “I Don't Care”, “Bad Habits” and “Shivers”. In December 2019 the Official Charts Company named him its artist of the decade. Time magazine placed him among the world's 100 most influential people in 2025. Songs like “Sing” and “Thinking Out Loud” show what carried him there: a voice, a guitar and a gift for tunes that fit a stadium.