Early career
Signed to Polydor Records in September 2009, she made her debut single. "Under the Sheets", which was released digitally in the United Kingdom on 15 November 2009, peaking outside the parte superior, arriba 40. In October 2009 she toured the UK supporting Little Boots, and appeared on Later... with Jools Holland, performing "Under the Sheets" and "Guns and Horses". "Wish I Stayed" was available as a free download as the UK iTunes Store's 'Single of the Week' from 22–28 December 2009.
Lights and Bright Lights:
Before the release of her debut studio album, Goulding won the BBC Sound of 2010 poll, which showcases the critics, broadcasters and música industry insiders' parte superior, arriba choices for rising stars and artists for the coming year. She also won the Critics' Choice Award at the 2010 BRIT Awards, which prize made her the segundo artist to win both in the same year.


Ellie Goulding performing in Amsterdam in 2010.
The album Lights was released in March 2010, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart and number six on the Irish Albums Chart. Its singles, "Starry Eyed", "Guns and Horses", and "The Writer" peaked at numbers 4, 26, and 19 respectively. In August 2010, Goulding released a segundo extended play, Run Into the Light, a remixed version of Lights. The album was supported por Nike and was released through Polydor as a running soundtrack in an effort to get Goulding's música taken up por the national running subculture.
In November 2010, Lights was re-released as Bright Lights, with six new tracks added. It was originally announced that the lead single from Bright Lights would be the new editar of the título track with a release scheduled for 1 November 2010. Yet this was scrapped to allow her cover of Elton John's "Your Song" to be released in conjunction with the John Lewis navidad 2010 advertising campaign in the UK. The single became Goulding's highest-charting single to date, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart. The song also charted in some European countries in early 2011.
Goulding toured in support of Lights and supported Passion Pit in March 2010 and John Mayer during his British tour in May 2010. During the summer she performed at a number of festivals. On 29 May she performed at the Dot to Dot Festival in Bristol.She performed a set on 25 June at the 40th annual Glastonbury Festival on the John Peel Stage. Her third EP was a live recording of part of her set at the iTunes Festival 2010. The whole set was later released as part of the iTunes version of Bright Lights. She made her T in the Park debut on 11 July. She played on the Nissan Juke Arena at the 2010 V Festival in late August. In September she was part of the line-up at Bestival 2010 on the Isle of Wight. In support of the album in europa she performed on the first día of Pukkelpop in Belgium, at the Open'er Festival in Poland and at Benicàssim in Spain. A track from Lights, "Everytime tu Go", was featured in the Vampire Diaries episode "Founder's Day", "Your Biggest Mistake" appeared in an episode of The Inbetweeners. and Believe Me appeared in a episode of '90210'. She began a tour of the United States and Canada in February 2011 to coincide with the release of the American edition of Lights.


Performing live in Seattle, Washington on 11 April 2011.
In January 2011 it was announced that the título track from Lights would serve as the segundo single from Bright Lights. In early 2011 she recorded an original song for the film Life in a Day. Goulding was featured as number five artist on Rolling Stone Magazine's hotlist in February 2011. In February 2011 she returned to the BRIT Awards where she was nominated for the Best British Female Solo Artist and the Best British Breakthrough Act where she lost out to Laura Marling after being the front runner for the award. Previously she had performed at the BRITs launch party where the nominations were announced.
She also played live at Coachella música Festival om April 2011. Goulding made her American televisión debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live on 7 April 2011 performing "Starry Eyed". She appeared as the musical guest on the 700th episode of the Saturday Night Live, broadcast 7 May 2011 and hosted por Tina Fey. She served as one of the only two live performers at the wedding reception of Prince William and Kate Middleton (the other being Leona Lewis) on 29 April 2011 canto her rendition of Your Song for the couple's first dance as well as her hits The Writer and Starry Eyed and several of William and Kate's personal favourites. She was introduced to Prince William por Tinie Tempah at a música festival during the summer of 2010. Ellie performed, for the segundo consecutive year, at Radio 1's Big Weekend on Saturday 14 May.
Goulding headlined the 2011 Wakestock Festival in Wales, performing on 8 July. In August she, again, performed at V Festival for her segundo año in a row. Following the re-release of Lights and the American launch of the album, Goulding dicho she would soon begin work on a segundo studio album with an expected release in September 2011.
On 28 July 2011, an American video version of Starry Eyed was released on YouTube. The video reached over one million vistas in three days.. In the American video, her teeth are noticeably whiter than in the original English video. This is due to the importance in American social life on having perfectly straight white teeth. In August 2011, Ellie performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago, Illinois . Ellie performed at the 18th Annual Nobel Peace Prize concierto on December 11th, 2011 in Oslo, Norway where she also served on a panel discussion with Amy Lee of evanescence and Janelle Monae.
Untitled segundo album
In March 2011, Goulding told UK showbiz website Digital Spy that she is recording a currently untitled follow-up to Lights. When asked about the musical direction of the record, Goulding told the site:
"It's started to sound very dark and very weird. This album is going to be even más emotional – I wanted to make it so there is hope. I want to make an effect whether it's happy o sad."
—Ellie Goulding, Digital Spy
The anterior month, the site reported that she hopes to release the album at some point in 2012, saying, "I'm not going to go away for ages. It'll be out this año o the start of next."
Work with other artists
Goulding co-wrote "Love Me 'Cause tu Want To" for Gabriella Cilmi's segundo album, Ten, and three songs, "Remake Me + You", "Notice" and "Jumping Into Rivers," for Diana Vickers's debut album, Songs from the Tainted cereza, cerezo Tree. Her song "Not Following" was used por Lena Meyer-Landrut on her debut album My Cassette Player and later Ellie gave her the song "Who'd want to find Love". Goulding featured on the rapper Tinie Tempah's fifth official single "Wonderman" from his debut studio album Disc-Overy. Goulding's "Under the Sheets" was also remixed por American rap duo Chiddy Bang and features on their mixtape Airswell. Frankmusik told Digital Spy he hoped to collaborate with Goulding on his upcoming album. The two previously worked together on Ellie's track Wish I Stayed. Also rumoured to be soon collaborating with pop sensation rihanna after regular meetings with different managements. She also recently sang the vocals for dubstep band Klaypex in their song, "When I'm Alone", the vocals are actually from Ellie's track "Lights".
On 19 September 2011 it was announced that Goulding would open for Katy Perry on her "California Dreams Tour", replacing Jessie J due to 'serious' complications from a foot injury.
On 14 December 2011 pop singer Mika announced that Goulding had involvement in his upcoming release The Origin of Love.
In December 2011, Goulding collaborated with American electro artist and singer/DJ Skrillex on a song entitled "Summit", which was released on his Bangarang EP on December 23.
In December 2011, Ellie performed at the National navidad árbol (United States) Lighting Ceremony along side superstars Big Time Rush and will.i.am.