Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments.

Originating as a form in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, it became extremely popular in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, where it was played by such artists as Lonnie Donegan, the Vipers Skiffle Group, Ken Colyer, and Chas McDevitt.

Skiffle was a major part of the early careers of some musicians who later became prominent in other genres, including the Quarrymen (who were later renamed the Beatles), Tony Sheridan, and Rory Gallagher. The skiffle style has been seen as a critical stepping stone to the second British folk revival, the British blues boom, and the British Invasion of American popular music.

The origins of skiffle are obscure but generally thought to lie in African-American musical culture in the early 20th century. Skiffle is often said to have developed from New Orleans jazz, but this claim has been disputed. Improvised jug bands playing blues and jazz were common across the American South in the early decades of the 20th century. They used instruments such as the washboard, jugs, washtub bass, cigar-box fiddle, musical saw and comb-and-paper kazoos, as well as more conventional instruments, such as acoustic guitar and banjo.

The origin of the English word skiffle is unknown. However, in the dialect of the west of England to make a skiffle, meaning to make a mess of any business, is attested from 1873. In early 20th century America the term skiffle was one of many slang phrases for a rent party, a social event with a small charge designed to pay rent on a house. It was first recorded in Chicago in the 1920s and may have been brought there as part of the African-American migration to northern industrial cities.

The first use of the term on record was in 1925 in the name of Jimmy O'Bryant and his Chicago Skifflers. Most often it was used to describe country blues music records, which included the compositions "Hometown Skiffle" (1929) and "Skiffle Blues" (1946) by Dan Burley & his Skiffle Boys. It was used by Ma Rainey (1886–1939) to describe her repertoire to rural audiences. The term skiffle disappeared from American music in the 1940s.

Skiffle was a relatively obscure genre, and it might have been largely forgotten if not for its revival in the United Kingdom in the 1950s and the success of its main proponent, Lonnie Donegan. British skiffle grew out of the developing post-war British jazz scene, which saw a move away from swing music and towards trad jazz. Among these bands were Bill Bailey Skiffle Group and Ken Colyer's Jazzmen, a band formed by Chris Barber. Lonnie Donegan played banjo for the Jazzmen, and also performed skiffle music during intervals. He would sing and play guitar with accompaniment of two other members, usually on washboard and tea-chest bass. They played a variety of American folk and blues songs, particularly those derived from the recordings of Lead Belly, in a lively style that emulated American jug bands. These were listed on posters as "skiffle" breaks, a name suggested by Ken Colyer's brother Bill after recalling the Dan Burley Skiffle Group. Soon the breaks were as popular as traditional jazz. After disagreements in 1954, Colyer left to form a new outfit, and the band became Chris Barber's Jazz Band.

The first British recordings of skiffle were carried out by Colyer's new band in 1954, but it was the release by Decca of two skiffle tracks by Barber's Jazz Band under the name of the "Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group" that transformed the fortunes of skiffle in late 1955. Donegan's fast-tempo version of Lead Belly's "Rock Island Line" was a major hit in 1956, featuring a washboard (but not a tea-chest bass), with "John Henry" on the B-side. It spent eight months in the Top 20, peaking at No. 6 (and No. 8 in the U.S.). It was the first debut record to go gold in Britain, selling over a million copies worldwide.