The Ultimate Office Playlist

Office workers’ favourite artists and songs to listen to while working

It is scientifically proven that listening to music can boost your mood, productivity, and focus, so it’s no surprise that office workers around the world are impartial to some tunes while they work. But deciding what artist, playlist, or genre to listen to in order to keep all of the team happy is probably one of the biggest office debates there is! After all, music taste can be quite personal.

The office design experts at Meridian Interiors have decided to go one step further than layout and decor this time and delve into acoustics too!

We have decided to settle the discussion once and for all, by revealing the ultimate office playlist to suit all ages and tastes at work. We’ve crawled and analysed Spotify for office playlists to find out which songs are most popular in an office environment, and can reveal the winning tracks and artists…

The most popular songs for work listening

HR teams can rejoice; no longer will colleagues be shouting “next” or fighting for the Sonos control, as this final list of songs are what tick the boxes with most teams around the UK, and it looks pretty encompassing for all genres and tastes.

From soothing Ed Sheeran melodies in Shape of You, through to Van Morrison’s easy listening Brown Eyed Girl, and on to TOTO’s classic Africa; these songs featured most across 100+ office-related playlists, so are the biggest hits for the workplace.

The most popular and office-pleasing song to have on in the office – according to the study – is Train’s Hey, Soul Sister.

Rank	Song	Artist	No. of playlists
1	Hey, Soul Sister	Train	40
2	Blinding Lights	The Weekend	34
3	Shape of You	Ed Sheeran	33
4	Don’t Stop Believin’	Journey	32
5	Take on Me	a-ha	32
6	Treat You Better	Shawn Mendes	32
7	I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)	Whitney Houston	32
8	My Girl	The Temptations	31
9	Brown Eyed Girl	Van Morrison	31
10	Circles	Post Malone	31
11	Thinking Out Loud	Ed Sheeran	31
12	Just The Way You Are	Bruno Mars	30
13	I’m Yours	Jason Mraz	30
14	Riptide	Vance Joy	30
15	Shut Up and Dance	WALK THE MOON	29
16	Viva La Vida	Coldplay	29
17	Watermelon Sugar	Harry Styles	28
18	Hey Their Delilah	Plain White T’s	28
19	Counting Stars	OneRepublic	28
20	I Want You Back	The Jackson 5	26
21	Africa	TOTO	25
22	September	Earth, Wind & Fire	25
23	Put Your Records On	Corinne Bailey Rae	24
24	Love Song	Sara Bareilles	23
25	Sunday Morning	Maroon 5	21
26	Don’t Go Breaking My Heart	Elton John, Kiki Dee	21
27	Happier	Marshmello, Bastille	18
28	Crazy	Gnarls Barkley	17
29	Hello	Adele	17
30	Dynamite	Taio Cruz	15

The most popular artists to listen to in the office

An interesting concoction of genres can be found when we look at most popular artists. With a mix of modern pop with classic rock; our favourite artists to listen to at work really include something for everyone.

Taylor Swift topped the charts, with her tracks featuring in a whopping 276 playlists! She was closely followed by Ed Sheeran, The Beatles, John Mayer and Coldplay.

Rank	Artist	No. of playlists
1	Taylor Swift	276
2	Ed Sheeran	242
3	The Beetles	215
4	John Mayer	196
5	Coldplay	187
6	Maroon 5	176
7	Fleetwood Mac	162
8	Shawn Mendes	160
9	Elton John	158
10	Imagine Dragons	158
11	Adele	152
12	Stevie Wonder	144
13	Billy Joel	143
14	Michael Jackson	141
15	Queen	141
16	Bruno Mars	139
17	OneRepublic	132
18	Sam Smith	127
19	Train	123
20	Katy Perry	118
21	Justin Bieber	111
22	Whitney Houston	110
23	Justin Timberlake	108
24	Beyoncé	103
25	Bob Marley & The Wailers	103
26	The Rolling Stones	96
27	Prince	95
28	Eagles	94
29	Madonna	93
30	The Police	91

How to choose the right music for your office

Our managing director, Paul Dawson comments on the findings: “It’s great to see such a mixture of songs in the ultimate office playlist. This has been a fun study to do, and one for our team to listen to when we are doing office re-fits too!”

When considering speakers and music for your team, Paul also urges employers and business owners to consider acoustics in offices too: “Many modern offices are designed using an open plan layout and for good reason, as this type of space is ideal for building staff relationships, collaborating on projects and making all staff approachable. However, with the considerable size of some open plan offices, the noise within these spaces can reverberate across the workplace, creating a distracting environment to try to work in.”

“We often advise on carpet tiles, ceiling coverings or pads, and booth and partitioned areas for quieter spaces and to minimise echoing. But when music is concerned, business owners should also consider where to place speakers to not counteract this. We recommend several wall-fitted speakers to avoid noisier sections and to discreetly add background music without it being too much of a focus – or causing debates on what to play!” Paul adds.

Methodology

We collated a list of over 40,000 songs from user-created Spotify playlists that had a reference to office in their titles. We searched for playlists that contained the word “office” and found over 100 such as ‘Your Office Stereo’, ‘Office/ Work Playlist’, and ‘Office Playlist 2021’.

By data-crunching the songs and artists from each of these playlists, we were able to find which were most heavily featured, to reveal the most listened to songs and artists in the workplace.