In the shown time-period the mean height of men and women has generally increased in England. According to the survey, the average height of males rose slightly during the period in consideration, from 174.4 centimeters in 1998 to 176.2 centimeters (approximately 5'9") in 2022. In comparison, the mean height of women was 162.3 centimeters (5'4") in 2022, up from 161 in 1998. Reasons for height increasing While a large part of an adult’s final height is based on genetics, the environment in which a person grows up is also important. Improvements in nutrition, healthcare, and hygiene have seen the average heights increase over the last century, particularly in developed countries. Average height is usually seen as a barometer for the overall health of the population of a country, as the most developed are usually among the ‘tallest’ countries. Average waist circumference also increasing The prevalence of obesity among adults in England has generally been trending upward since 2000. In that year, 21 percent of men and women in England were classified as obese. By 2021, however, this share was 26 percent among women and 25 percent among men. Every adult age group in England had an average BMI which was classified as overweight, apart from those aged 16 to 24, indicating there is a problem with overweightness in England.

In 2022, men aged 55 to 64 years had an average body mass index (BMI) of 29 kg/m2 and women in the same age group had a BMI of 28.8 kg/m2, the highest mean BMI across all the age groups. Apart from individuals aged 16 to 24 years, every demographic in England had an average BMI which is classified as overweight.An increasing problem It is shown that the mean BMI of individuals for both men and women has been generally increasing year-on-year in England. The numbers show in England, as in the rest of the United Kingdom (UK), that the prevalence of obesity is an increasing health problem. The prevalence of obesity in women in England has increased by around nine percent since 2000, while for men the share of obesity has increased by six percent. Strain on the health service Being overweight increases the chances of developing serious health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancers. In the period 2019/20, England experienced over 10.7 thousand hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of obesity, whereas in 2002/03 this figure was only 1,275 admissions. Furthermore, the number of bariatric surgeries taking place in England, particularly among women, has significantly increased over the last fifteen years. In 2019/20, over 5.4 thousand bariatric surgery procedures were performed on women and approximately 1.3 thousand were carried out on men.

In the UK, the average scheme size of build-to-rent housing in planning as of 2024 was notably larger than the scheme size of completed properties. In the second quarter of the year, projects in planning had an average size of *** units, while for completed projects, this figure amounted to ***. Build-to-rent, or BTR is residential housing, flats or houses, that are built specifically to be rented. They are usually professionally managed and offer longer leasing periods.

The United Kingdom's economy grew by 1.1 percent in 2024, after a growth rate of 0.3 percent in 2023, 5.1 percent in 2022, 8.5 percent in 2021, and a record ten percent fall in 2020. During the provided time period, the biggest annual fall in gross domestic product before 2020 occurred in 2009, when the UK economy contracted by 4.6 percent at the height of the global financial crisis of the late 2000s. Before 2021, the year with the highest annual GDP growth rate was 1973, when the UK economy grew by 6.5 percent. UK economy growing but GDP per capita falling In 2022, the UK's GDP per capita amounted to approximately 37,371 pounds, with this falling to 37,028 pounds in 2023, and 36,977 pounds in 2024. While the UK economy as a whole grew during this time, the UK's population grew at a faster rate, resulting in the negative growth in GDP per capita. This suggests the UK economy's struggles with productivity are not only stagnating, but getting worse. The relatively poor economic performance of the UK in recent years has not gone unnoticed by the electorate, with the economy consistently seen as the most important issue for voters since 2022. Recent shocks to UK economy In the second quarter of 2020, the UK economy shrank by a record 20.3 percent at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there was a relatively swift economic recovery initially, the economy has struggled to grow much beyond its pre-pandemic size, and was only around 3.1 percent larger in December 2024, when compared with December 2019. Although the labor market has generally been quite resilient during this time, a long twenty-month period between 2021 and 2023 saw prices rise faster than wages, and inflation surge to a high of 11.1 percent in October 2022.

The average floor area of dwellings in England in 2024 varied by tenure type. In this year, the usable floor area was largest for owner occupiers (110 square meters), followed by private renters (75 square meters). The smallest dwellings were those belonging to social renters (66 square meters). In 2025, around 4 million houses in England were of the social housing kind.

There were 11,480 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending November 14, 2025, compared with 11,297 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.

For the week ending August 29, 2025, weekly deaths in England and Wales were 985 below the number expected, compared with 855 below what was expected in the previous week. In late 2022 and through early 2023, excess deaths were elevated for a number of weeks, with the excess deaths figure for the week ending January 13, 2023, the highest since February 2021. In the middle of April 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were almost 12,000 excess deaths a week recorded in England and Wales. It was not until two months later, in the week ending June 19, 2020, that the number of deaths began to be lower than the five-year average for the corresponding week. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were 689,629 deaths in the United Kingdom, making that year the deadliest since 1918, at the height of the Spanish influenza pandemic. As seen in the excess death figures, April 2020 was by far the worst month in terms of deaths during the pandemic. The weekly number of deaths for weeks 16 and 17 of that year were 22,351, and 21,997 respectively. Although the number of deaths fell to more usual levels for the rest of that year, a winter wave of the disease led to a high number of deaths in January 2021, with 18,676 deaths recorded in the fourth week of that year. For the whole of 2021, there were 667,479 deaths in the UK, 22,150 fewer than in 2020. Life expectancy in the UK goes into reverse In 2022, life expectancy at birth for women in the UK was 82.6 years, while for men it was 78.6 years. This was the lowest life expectancy in the country for ten years, and came after life expectancy improvements stalled throughout the 2010s, and then declined from 2020 onwards. There is also quite a significant regional difference in life expectancy in the UK. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, for example, the life expectancy for men was 81.5 years, and 86.5 years for women. By contrast, in Blackpool, in North West England, male life expectancy was just 73.1 years, while for women, life expectancy was lowest in Glasgow, at 78 years.

In 2024, the average age for personnel in the UK Armed Forces overall was 31 years old. The average age of those serving in the British Army was also **, with the average age rising to ** for the Royal Navy and Marines, and was ** for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The average age for officers in the Armed Forces was **, with this rising to ** for officers in the Royal Air Force. Personnel falls to historical lows in 2024 Overall, there has been a long-term decline in the size of the armed forces, with the number of personnel declining from over ******* in 2000, to around ******* by 2024. In fact, the size of the armed forces has been in almost constant decline since the end of World War Two. Britain's retreat from its colonial empire throughout this period removed many of the UK's overseas commitments, with the end of the Cold War also leading to further cuts to personnel. Operational deaths since the Second World War Since 1945 there have been ***** operational deaths in the United Kingdom’s armed forces, with the deadliest year occurring in 1951 when there were *** deaths. This was due to three separate conflicts: the Malayan Emergency, the 1951 Anglo-Egyptian War and the Korean War. Since 1959, there were only three years that had more than 100 operational deaths: 1972, 1973 and 1982. By comparison, between 2016 and 2024, there have been only **** operational deaths, with just *** death reported throughout the whole of 2023.

In 2025, there were around 137,000 regular personnel serving in the British Armed Forces, compared with 138,000 in the previous year. In the first half of the twentieth century, there were two huge spikes in the number of active personnel which represented the final years of World War One and World War Two, numbering 4.58 million and 4.69 million in 1918 and 1945 respectively. Ever since 1945, the size of the regular armed forces has been in almost constant decline, with the noticeable exception of the early 1950s, when the number of active personnel increased by almost 200,000 because of the Korean War. The winds of change There are several reasons why the number of personnel in Britain’s armed forces has declined. Britain is involved in a far fewer conventional military conflicts today than it was in the past. As the size of Britain’s empire declined rapidly after 1945, so too did the UK's global military commitments. There are also more recent developments, such as the UK government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2010, which outlined personnel would be cut throughout the 2010s to modernize the UK’s armed forces. Recent geopolitical events such as the War in Ukraine have, however, led to commitments from the UK government to spend more on defence, and eventually even a reversal of personnel cuts. Branches of the UK military There are three main branches of the UK armed forces, the British Army, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and the Royal Marines. Of the 181,000 people serving in the UK’s armed forces in 2025, over half of them were in the British Army, which had around 109,000 personnel. The next largest branch was the Royal Navy at 37,900, followed by the RAF at 34,800 personnel. The average age for people serving in the armed forces was 31 in 2024, with the Royal Air Force having a slightly higher average age group than the other branches, at 33.