How Old Are the Top DJs in 2026? Ages, Arrival Ages and Where They Rank
John Summit is 32, Dom Dolla 34 and Peggy Gou 35. We checked the birth dates of 68 DJs in the DJ Mag Top 100 2026: the median age is 38, and nobody arrived on the list before 30.
John Summit is 32, Dom Dolla is 34 and Peggy Gou is 35. Those three questions alone brought thousands of searches to our artist pages this month, so we went further and checked the birth date of every solo DJ in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2026 that we hold on file. That is 68 artists. Their median age is 38, the youngest is Alan Walker at 29 and the oldest is Carl Cox at 64.
Below are the ages people look up most, one by one, followed by what the numbers say about how long it really takes to break through. All ages are as of 15 October 2026.
How old is John Summit? 32
Born: 29 July 1994, Naperville, Illinois | Top 100 2026: No. 24 | Artist page
John Summit was still working as an accountant when he started taking production seriously, and his first releases came in 2017. Deep End in 2020 changed everything, and his label Experts Only grew out of it. He reached the Top 100 in 2024 at No. 70, the year he turned 30, then climbed to No. 46 and now No. 24. That is one of the fastest climbs on the current list.
Photo: InvadingInvader / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
How old is Dom Dolla? 34
Born: 18 January 1992, Manila | Top 100 2026: No. 38 | Artist page
The Australian tech house producer behind San Frandisco, Rhyme Dust and Saving Up has been releasing music since 2013. The Top 100 took him eleven years: No. 66 in 2024, No. 41 in 2025, No. 38 this year. Saving Up, one of his biggest records, is below.
How old is Peggy Gou? 35
Born: 3 July 1991, Incheon, South Korea | Top 100 2026: No. 13 | Artist page
Peggy Gou has been on the list in every year of our records: No. 80 in 2019, a peak of No. 9 in 2023 and No. 13 now. She moved to Berlin in the mid-2010s and launched her own label, Gudu Records, in 2019. Her height and net worth get searched almost as often as her age, and we answered those separately in our Peggy Gou facts piece.
Photo: Jwslubbock / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
How old is Steve Aoki? 48
Born: 30 November 1977, Miami | Top 100 2026: No. 18 | Artist page
Steve Aoki turns 49 next month. He founded Dim Mak in 1996, while still a student, and sat inside the Top 10 every year from 2019 to 2023. Since then he has drifted to No. 12, No. 14 and No. 18, which is still a very good place to be thirty years into a career.
Photo: Coxttin1234 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
How old is Franky Rizardo? 38
Born: 1 June 1988, the Netherlands | Top 100 2026: not listed | Artist page
One of the Dutch house names people search most, even without a Top 100 placing. Franky Rizardo runs LTF Records and his own event brand FLOW, and he is a regular on the Music On circuit. His 2026 Coachella set shows where his sound sits right now.
How old is HUGEL? 38
Born: 4 December 1987, Marseille | Top 100 2026: No. 48 | Artist page
HUGEL turns 39 in December. His first releases came in 2005, but most people met him through the 2018 Bella Ciao remix, followed by the Latin house hits Morenita and I Adore You. He entered the Top 100 at No. 54 in 2025, twenty years after he started, and rose to No. 48 this year.
How old is Korolova? 38
Born: 17 March 1988, Chernihiv, Ukraine | Top 100 2026: No. 36 | Artist page
Olga Korolova started out in 2012 and built her melodic techno following set by set, many of them filmed in places like Cappadocia and the Zamna pyramids in Egypt. She runs Captive Soul and has climbed every year since her Top 100 debut: No. 60, No. 50 and now No. 36. Her 2026 Tomorrowland set:
How old is KETTAMA? 29
Born: 30 May 1997, Galway, Ireland | Top 100 2026: not listed | Artist page
At 29, KETTAMA is as young as anyone we could verify in the Top 100, and he is not even on the list yet. The Galway producer behind B O D Y and It Gets Better runs G-Town Records. With Josh Baker and Prospa he sold out three nights at Finsbury Park for 2 to 4 July 2027, the opening weekend of the new Embrace LDN festival.
Carl Cox: 64, the oldest DJ in the Top 100
Born: 29 July 1962, Oldham, England | Top 100 2026: No. 23 | Artist page
Carl Cox started playing records in 1977, at 15. He is a former DJ Mag No. 1, and in 2026 he sits higher than in 2019, at No. 23 against No. 35. Nobody else on the list with a public birth date is over 60. If you are wondering how that career translates into money, we covered it in Carl Cox’s net worth.
Photo: MadBob / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
Alan Walker: 29, the youngest we could verify
Born: 24 August 1997, Northampton, England | Top 100 2026: No. 32 | Artist page
The Norwegian producer was 18 when Faded came out in December 2015. Ten years later it is past four billion YouTube views, and he is the only DJ in the Top 100 2026 with a public birth date who is still in his twenties. A few newer names on the list, Josh Baker and Mochakk among them, do not publish a full birth date, so take the title with that caveat.
David Guetta: 58, and No. 1 again
Born: 7 November 1967, Paris | Top 100 2026: No. 1 | Artist page
Guetta turns 59 next month. He started DJing in Paris in 1984 and won the Top 100 for the sixth time this year. The eight Top 10 DJs with a public birth date have a median age of 36.5, so the No. 1 is more than twenty years older than the typical DJ just below him.
Photo: Hatch101 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
How old are DJs when they break into the Top 100?
Older than you might think. From 2020 to 2026, 31 solo DJs with a public birth date made their first appearance in our Top 100 records. Not one of them was under 30 that year. The median arrival age is 33, and the median gap between first releases and a first Top 100 placing is twelve years.
The shortcut, if there is one, belongs to Anyma. The project only started in 2021 and was in the Top 100 by 2024 at No. 17. It has since gone to No. 10 and No. 3. That is not really an overnight success, though. Matteo Milleri, now 38, had already spent more than a decade building Tale Of Us and Afterlife before Anyma existed.
Photo: ObAnyma / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (cropped)
Which genre has the youngest DJs?
Techno. Split the Top 100 by each DJ’s main genre and the eleven techno names have a median age of 35: KI/KI is 30, Nico Moreno 32, Charlotte de Witte and Indira Paganotto both 34. House and tech house are close behind at 36. Trance is the outlier at 52, carried by Tiësto, Paul van Dyk, ATB and Ferry Corsten, all of whom made their names in the nineties.
We looked at how techno did in this year’s poll overall, including Charlotte de Witte at No. 6 and the dip for hard techno, in our Top 100 techno analysis.
The TA view
The searches suggest people expect DJs to be younger than they are. The data says something else: the Top 100 is mostly a list of people in their thirties who spent ten years or more on small rooms and unglamorous releases before anyone voted for them. The age to watch is not 21. It is 30 to 33, when John Summit, Amelie Lens and Fred again.. all arrived. KETTAMA turns 30 next May.
How we worked this out
Birth dates come from the Techno Airlines artist database, where each date is sourced from Wikipedia, Wikidata, MusicBrainz, Discogs or the artist’s own biography. Ages are calculated for 15 October 2026. We included solo DJs in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2026 with a verified date (68 of 100) and left out duos, groups and artists who do not publish a birth date. Arrival age is the year of a first Top 100 appearance minus birth year, using our Top 100 records from 2019 onwards, so a handful of veterans who had charted before 2019 are counted from their return. Genre is the first genre listed on each artist page.
FAQ
How old is John Summit?
John Summit is 32. He was born on 29 July 1994 in Naperville, Illinois.
Who is the oldest DJ in the DJ Mag Top 100 2026?
Carl Cox, at 64. He was born on 29 July 1962 and is No. 23 in the 2026 poll.
Who is the youngest DJ in the Top 100 2026?
Among DJs with a public birth date, Alan Walker at 29. Some newer entries do not publish a birth date, so one of them may be younger.
What is the average age of a Top 100 DJ?
The median age of the 68 solo DJs we could verify is 38 and the mean is 40. Most are between 30 and 39.
At what age do DJs usually make the Top 100?
For DJs who arrived between 2020 and 2026, the median age was 33, roughly twelve years after their first releases. None was younger than 30.
Every artist above has a full profile with real name, birthplace, labels and upcoming shows in our techno artists directory, and the full ranking is in our DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2026 results.
Sources: DJ Mag Top 100 DJs 2019 to 2026; Wikipedia, Wikidata, MusicBrainz and Discogs entries for each artist; Amsterdam Dance Event artist profile (Franky Rizardo); DJ Mag on the Finsbury Park shows. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image.
