The awards are part of UMA Music Group and were established in 2016 by Simon O'Kelly, Georgina Thomas and Ben Connor.

[citation needed] The first ever event took place at the Troxy Theatre[2] in London on Thursday 27 October 2016.

As of 2018, UMA awards ceremonies will recognise albums, EPs, and songs that have released between January 1 in the previous year, and March 31 in the current year, allowing artists fifteen months to work their releases to a point that it becomes notable.

In order to ensure that the artists nominated for an Unsigned Music Award meet a certain criteria, three of the four nominees chosen are put forward by the UMA Voting Panel, with the remaining nominee in each category being selected from the list of applications submitted through the UMA website.

In 2016, the first ever Unsigned Music Awards was televised on Monday, 31 October 2016 at 9:30pm, four days after the event took place on Sky, Freeview and Freesat via the digital TV network, Showcase.