This is a list of events taking place in 2021 relating to radio in the United Kingdom.
Events January 1 January – BBC Radio 3 airs the annual Vienna New Year's Concert. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic there is no live audience for the 2021 concert, but the concert is able to go ahead as the orchestra have been COVID tested on a daily basis. BBC Radio 4 marks the 70th anniversary of The Archers with a series of features throughout the day. United DJs, scheduled to close on New Year's Day due to financial difficulties, is able to continue broadcasting after receiving help from an unnamed backer. 2 January – Former BBC Radio 1 presenter Dev Griffin joins Heart to present a Saturday afternoon show. Cat Deeley joins BBC Radio 2 as a presenter. Former KISS presenter Charlie Powell joins Capital to present weekend overnights. Wally Webb presents his final programme for BBC Radio Norfolk after 40 years with the station. 3 January – Clare Teal presents her final edition of The Swing and Big Band Show on BBC Radio 2. Cambridgeshire community station Star Radio joins the Peterborough and Cambridge DAB multiplexes, enabling it to extend its terrestrial coverage. 4 January – BBC Radio 2 makes some changes to its schedule. These include an earlier start for Vanessa Feltz's show, which now begins at 4am. Queen Elizabeth II sends her best wishes to Radio 4's Woman's Hour to mark its 75th year, describing the programme as having "played a significant part in the evolving role of women" and wishing it "continued success" with its "important work". The launch of YorkMix Radio. Emma Barnett takes over as presenter of Woman's Hour, presenting the programme on Monday to Thursday. Launch of Nation Radio UK on DAB. Presenters include Mike Read, Russ Williams, Neil Francis, Neil Fox and Dean Martin. The station is initially available in London, Scotland, North West England and on the South Coast. Launch of Resort Radio, an online station targeting the UK domestic holiday market. As part of a schedule shakeup, Hits Radio announces that former Kiss presenter Tom Green has joined the station to present Weekend Breakfast. Bauer Media confirms that its dedicated charity network Cash for Kids raised £16.7 million to help disadvantaged children during 2020. 5 January – YouTube bans Talkradio for allegedly violating its rules by posting information that contradicts expert advice about the COVID-19 pandemic, but reinstates the station within hours. 6 January – Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, announces that Richard Sharp, former chair of the Royal Academy of Arts, is the government's preferred choice for the next Chairman of the BBC. Woman's Hour presenter Emma Barnett defends herself after Kelechi Okafor, a guest booked for the show, pulled out at the last minute following comments made by Barnett. Barnett says she and her producer were discussing alleged anti-Semitic comments made by Okafor. Rotherham's RB1 Radio signs Darren Spence and Bruce Edwards to present afternoons and evenings respectively. 7 January – Adrian Chiles is confirmed as presenter of BBC Radio 5 Live's weekday mid-morning show on Thursdays and Fridays, replacing Emma Barnett. BBC Local Radio launches its Make a Difference: Give A Laptop campaign to provide electronic devices to disadvantaged children during lockdown; by 28 January 17,645 devices have been donated by individuals and businesses. 8 January – BBC Local Radio relaunches the Make a Difference: Give a Laptop campaign to help provide laptops and smart devices for children unable to attend school during the lockdown. 9 January – Henrie Kwushue joins Kiss to present weekend breakfast. Graham Norton joins Virgin Radio to present a Saturday morning show; for the first time he is operating his own radio desk, something he had not done at Radio 2. 11 January – Boom Radio UK, launching on 14 February, unveils its schedule and list of presenters, including Graham Dene, David Hamilton, Nicky Horne, Diana Luke, Kid Jensen and Roger Day. Ofcom has found two community stations, Hitmix Radio in Newcastle-under-Lyme and Cumbernauld FM, to be in breach of their licence agreements for not recording their output. Both stations have blamed technical reasons for their audio recorders not working, something which came to light after listeners complained to Ofcom about content on the station and Ofcom requested a recording of the material. The children's station Fun Kids launches eight new stations, including Fun Kids Classical, Fun Kids Party, Fun Kids Pop Hits and Fun Kids Soundtracks. Online station Rubix Radio launches on DAB in Norwich and Cambridge. Launch of Radio Travel News, a service providing local and national travel bulletins to radio stations for a monthly fee, and delivered half-hourly at peak times via Dropbox. A week on from its launch the service announces an expansion of its output. 13 January – Mica Paris joins Greatest Hits Radio to present Soul Food Songs, a three-part series looking at what makes an uplifting soul anthem and how music helps with people's physical and mental wellbeing. The series will end with a countdown of the top 200 soul food songs. 14 January – Test Match Special begins providing remote coverage of England's winter tour of Sri Lanka. 15 January – Anita Rani joins BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour to present the programme's Friday and Saturday editions. BBC Radio 4 confirms Elizabeth Day and Johny Pitts as new presenters of the Open Book programme, with Day making her debut on 17 January and Pitts making his debut on 31 January. They replace Mariella Frostrup who had presented the programme since 2003. 17 January – A new chart show, the UK Hot40 Countdown, is launched for radio stations in the UK and internationally. The three-hour programme is presented and produced by Chris Brooks, and uses the UK Airplay Chart as provided by Radiomonitor.com. 18 January – Online old skool station NRG announces plans to launch on DAB in the Black Country and Shropshire. 19 January – Bristol-based community station BCfm announces it is providing free DAB sets to people aged 50 and over. 20–21 January – With the north west of England in the grip of Storm Christoph, BBC Radio Manchester remains broadcasting through the night to provide up-to-date coverage of events rather than taking the usual overnight feed from BBC Radio 5 Live. 21 January – Howell James is reappointed chair of Radiocentre, the body overseeing commercial radio in the UK, for another three-year term. 22 January – Broadcaster Leo Green announces plans to launch LGRADIO.ONLINE, an online subscription station catering for listeners who feel they are not served by popular mainstream music stations. The station will feature music from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as Motown, Jazz and Soul, and will also include archive programmes made by his father, Benny Green. 23 January – Andy Baird, suspended from Cool FM earlier in the month, has left the station, it is reported. Cool FM has subsequently revamped its weekend schedule. 24 January – Clare Teal joins Jazz FM to present a Sunday evening show dedicated to Big Band and Swing music. 25 January – Former Smooth Radio presenter Dave Brown is hired by Nation Radio UK to present a late evening show on weeknights. Ofcom clears Bauer Radio following a listener complaint over the broadcast of a phone call with a competition, three versions of which were recorded with three different presenters. The competition to win £100,000 was run on the Planet Rock, KISS and Absolute Radio networks, but the listener felt Bauer had not made the networked element of the competition clear and that it was possible for someone listening to any of the networks to win the money. 26 January – BBC Radio Lancashire celebrates its 50th anniversary. The BBC confirms it will not replace the post of director of radio and music following the departure of James Purnell as it cuts out a layer of management as part of cost-cutting measures. 27 January – BFBS signs up with Timbre, a service from SharpStream, to manage and broadcast its online content. 31 January – Radio 2 counts down listeners' top 20 favourite songs from musicals during its Elaine Paige on Sunday show, with "One Day More" from Les Misérables voted as their favourite. Radio 2 airs Musicals: The Greatest Show, a programme presented by Sheridan Smith that celebrates stage musicals. The programme, which will also air on BBC One in February, is part of a three-day celebration of musicals by Radio 2. Colin Slade of Radio Exe presents a special programme celebrating his 50th anniversary in radio; Slade first presented on BBC Radio Medway on 31 January 1971.
February 1 February – Broadcaster Rob Charles takes over as breakfast show presenter at online station All Oldies Radio. Capital XTRA removes DJ Tiny from its schedule after allegations he was charging artists £200 to play their material on his show, something that breaches Ofcom rules. DJ Tiny subsequently apologises for "carelessly and irresponsibly [taking] advantage of [his] position". 2 February – Community station Erewash Sound announces it will remain on air after receiving a grant from Erewash Borough Council. 5 February – Talksport begins its live coverage of the England cricket team's tour of India. News UK hires Gordon Smart, a former presenter with Radio X to present and produce a daily TV programme provisionally titled News to Me. 6 February – Broadcaster and music promoter Adrian Skirrow joins Radio Caroline. 8 February – Magic Radio begins Our Love, a week-long series celebrating multicultural relationships among its listeners. Sound Radio, founded as an internet station in 2018, launches on FM in North East Wales. Ofcom finds Capital XTRA Reloaded guilty of breaching regulations for playing "I Got 5 On It" by Luniz, a song deemed to contain racially offensive language, on 7 September 2020. 9 February – Moray Firth Radio's 40th anniversary is celebrated with an evening online event staged by members of the Radio Academy's Scottish branch. The RadioToday website reports that 30 community stations are to begin airing Greenborne, a 12 episode soap set in a village in the post-COVID era and starring John Altman. 10 February – Bauer Media asks Ofcom for permission to change the 105.8FM frequency in London from Absolute Radio to Greatest Hits Radio. Plans are announced to rebrand Country Hits Radio to Absolute Radio Country from May, making it the 10th station to be part of the Absolute Radio Network. 12 February – Honeycomb Investments Ltd, a company founded by Michael Tabor of Global Investments, buys an 8.8% share in the US company iHeart Media. Hope Radio 87.9fm returns to the airwaves in South Birmingham as a temporary service providing information about COVID-19, and to encourage its listeners to get vaccinated. 14 February – John Barnes, a former presenter with BBC Radio Lancashire, joins Rossendale Radio in Lancashire to host a new Sunday morning show. Pirate FM and Lincs FM begin airing The Hits Radio Network's 'UK Chart Show' from Bauer Radio, the show replacing local content on the stations. 15 February – Figures released for the fourth quarter of 2020 indicate BBC Sounds had 3.7 million listeners during the week of the 2020 United States presidential election, a record number of people using the service. 18 February – A letter signed by more than 100 prominent figures, including politicians and writers, has criticised BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour for what it describes as a "strikingly hostile" interview with Zara Mohammed, the first female leader of the Muslim Council of Britain. In response to the letter the BBC says presenter Emma Barnett raised "legitimate" issues during the programme, but says it will "reflect on the concerns raised".