There were 667,479 deaths in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 689,629 in 2020. Between 2003 and 2011, the annual number of deaths in the UK fell from 612,085 to just over 552,232. Since 2011 however, the annual number of annual deaths in the United Kingdom has steadily grown, with the number recorded in 2020, the highest since 1918 when there were 715,246 deaths. Both of these spikes in the number of deaths can be attributed to infectious disease pandemics. The great influenza pandemic of 1918, which was at its height towards the end of World War One, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a large number of deaths in 2020.  Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic The weekly death figures for England and Wales highlight the tragic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. In two weeks in April of 2020, there were 22,351 and 21,997 deaths respectively, almost 12,000 excess deaths in each of those weeks. Although hospitals were the most common location of these deaths, a significant number of these deaths also took place in care homes, with 7,911 deaths taking place in care homes for the week ending April 24, 2020, far higher than usual. By the summer of 2020, the number of deaths in England and Wales reached more usual levels, before a second wave of excess deaths hit the country in early 2021. Although subsequent waves of COVID-19 cases resulted in far fewer deaths, the number of excess deaths remained elevated throughout 2022. Long-term life expectancy trends As of 2022 the life expectancy for men in the United Kingdom was 78.57, and almost 82.57 for women, compared with life expectancies of 75 for men and 80 for women in 2002. In historical terms, this is a major improvement in relation to the mid 18th century, when the overall life expectancy was just under 39 years. Between 2011 and 2017, improvements in life expectancy in the UK did start to decline, and have gone into reverse since 2018/20. Between 2020 and 2022 for example, life expectancy for men in the UK has fallen by over 37 weeks, and by almost 23 weeks for women, when compared with the previous year.

Annual data on death registrations by area of usual residence in the UK. Summary tables including age-standardised mortality rates.

Between 1953 and 2021, the death rate of the United Kingdom fluctuated between a high of 12.2 deaths per 1,000 people in 1962 and a low of 8.7 in 2011. From 2011 onwards, the death rate creeped up slightly and, in 2020, reached 10.3 deaths per 1,000 people. In 2021, the most recent year provided here, the death rate was ten, a decline from 2020 but still higher than in almost every year in the twenty-first century. The recent spike in the death rate corresponds to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, with the first cases recorded in early 2020. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were around 689,600 deaths in the United Kingdom, the highest in more than a century. Although there were fewer deaths in 2021, at almost 667,500, this was still far higher than in recent years. When looking at the weekly deaths in England and Wales for this time period, two periods stand out for reporting far more deaths than usual. The first period was between weeks 13 and 22 of 2020, which saw two weeks in late April report more than 20,000 deaths. Excess deaths for the week ending April 17, 2020, were 11,854 and 11,539 for the following week. Another wave of deaths occurred in January 2021, when there were more than 18,000 deaths per week between weeks three and five of that year. Improvements to life expectancy slowing Between 2020 and 2022, life expectancy in the United Kingdom was approximately 82.57 years for women and 78.57 years for men. Compared with life expectancy in 1980/82, this marked an increase of around six years for women and almost eight years for men. Despite these long-term developments, improvements to life expectancy have been slowing in recent years and have even declined since 2017/19. As of 2023, the country with the highest life expectancy in the World was Switzerland at 84.2 years, followed by Japan at 84.1 years, and then by Spain at 84 years.

In June 2025, there were 44,399 deaths in England and Wales, compared with 46,516 in April. In April 2020, there were 88,038 deaths, which was an increase of almost 40,000 from the month before and by far the month with the most deaths in this period. The dramatic increase in deaths in April can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which first hit the UK in early 2020.

Annual data on death registrations by single year of age for the UK (1974 onwards) and England and Wales (1963 onwards).

Annual data on the number of deaths registered in England and Wales by age group, sex, year and underlying cause of death, as defined using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision.

Annual UK and constituent country figures for births, deaths, marriages, divorces, civil partnerships and civil partnership dissolutions.

There were 2,784 infant deaths in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 2,620 in the previous year. The number of infant deaths in 2020 was the fewest in the provided time period, especially compared with 1900 when there were 163,470 infant deaths.

Annual data on deaths registered by age, sex and selected underlying cause of death. Tables also provide both mortality rates and numbers of deaths over time.

In 2023, the death rate in deaths per 1,000 inhabitants in the United Kingdom stood at ****. Between 1960 and 2023, the figure dropped by ****, though the decline followed an uneven course rather than a steady trajectory.

Annual age-standardised mortality rates for causes considered avoidable, treatable and preventable by local authorities in England and unitary authorities in Wales, from 2001 to 2003, to 2021 to 2023.

Legacy unique identifier: P00493

There were 10,156 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending July 11, 2025, compared with 10,019 in the previous week. During this time period, the two weeks with the highest number of weekly deaths were in April 2020, with the week ending April 17, 2020, having 22,351 deaths, and the following week 21,997 deaths, a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Death and life expectancy As of 2022, the life expectancy for women in the UK was just over 82.5 years, and almost 78.6 years for men. Compared with 1765, when average life expectancy was under 39 years, this is a huge improvement in historical terms. Even in the more recent past, life expectancy was less than 47 years at the start of the 20th Century, and was under 70 as recently as the 1950s. Despite these significant developments in the long-term, improvements in life expectancy stalled between 2009/11 and 2015/17, and have even gone into decline since 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, for example, life expectancy at birth fell by 23 weeks for females, and 37 weeks for males. COVID-19 in the UK The first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were recorded on January 31, 2020, but it was not until a month later that cases began to rise exponentially. By March 5 of this year there were more than 100 cases, rising to 1,000 days later and passing 10,000 cumulative cases by March 26. At the height of the pandemic in late April and early May, there were around six thousand new cases being recorded daily. As of January 2023, there were more than 24.2 million confirmed cumulative cases of COVID-19 recorded in the United Kingdom, resulting in 202,156 deaths.

Mortality rates (qx) values from the national life tables release, presented in time series format. These statistics are for males and females for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the UK.

In 2023, the age-specific death rate for men aged 90 or over in England and Wales was 248.1 per one thousand population, and 215.1 for women. Except for infants that were under the age of one, younger age groups had the lowest death rate, with the death rate getting progressively higher in older age groups.

To reduce deaths from diabetes.